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OF 



5 

ROBERT WiCKLIFFE 



TO 



OF 



EGBERT JUDAS BRECKINRIDGE, 



OTHERWISE CALLED 



ROBERT JEFFERSON BRECKINRIDGE, 



LEXINGTON, KY* 
KENTUCKY GAZETTE, PRINT 



1843 



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OF THE, 



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Fellow Citizens: — The iw^siqn^x 
from heaven to you, of 1840, th%J^ey.{jg^ 
ert Judas Breckinridge, but whocallsj him- 
self the Rev. Robert Jefferson Breckinridge, 
is again as large as life before the public in a 
phamphlet of 90 pages. In 1840 the said 
Reverend Judas declared that you, his friends 
and neighbors, should decide whether he or 
I was an infamous slanderer and calumni- 
ator. You were summoned to hear . him by 
the following publication: 

October 7th, 1840. 
"TO THE FREEMEN OF THE COUNTY OF 
FAYETTE." 
ti My Respected Countrymen: — Being called in 
the Providence of God, to visit this, my native 
region, to which I have been for nine years,al.-. 
most a stranger, I have been greatly grieved 
and astonished to find in wide circulation; c We I 
most gross and calumnious attacks uporijm'6 by' 
name, and in connexion with my name," upon 
systems of opinions, both political and religious, 
with which I have been more or less connected, 
and even upon that branch of the Church of 
God, in which it is my lot to be a minister-. I 
allude, as you cannot doubt, to the speech of 
Robert Wickliffe, Sen., made on the occasion of 
•the defeat of his son in the general election, and 



his own consequent resignation of his seat La 
the State Senate, and more recently printed in 
pamphlet form. 

It is -more than ten years sines I had the least 
connexion with political life, and nearly as long 
since I, had any , personal intercourse with Mr. 
Wickliffe. r The passions of men, especially of 
old men, ought to cool, and party bitterness to 
cease Oaf te* so long an interval. It cannot as- 
suage : the mortification of defeat, to traduce the 
dead, the absent, and those who no longer 
contend. I appear to myself to have aright to 
speak thus, if for no other reason, at least for 
this — that when, ten years ago, Mr. Wickliffe as 
he, still boasts* placed; me in circumstances some- 
what similar to those in which others have now 
placed his son, I submitted with composure 
and Without reproach, insult and slander, tothe 
trials which' h^ hoW findsTt sohard to endure. — 
The dealings of Providence are full of a sure 
and sacred retribution. 

It is therefore in no spirit or personal, aniraos* 
Hy t h a t r a f t e r m a t U f e d el i b e r a t i on , ex t e n s i V e 
conference with my friends, and humble seek- 
ing of guidance, from above, I have determined 
to defend myself, my principles, and the great 
interests involved, in the accusations of Mr. 
Wickliffe;;' atid to repel in the very spot where 
they Were' 1 made, charges and insinuations a- 
gainst myself, my friends, and my church, which 
are equally false, malicious and injurious. I 
therefore desire .to meet thi freemen of Fayette 



[ 4 ] 



county, my old friends and former constituents, and presented it to the Convention, who, 
at the Court House on Monday next, the 12th witfa s y H a l terationS5 passed it as he diaft . 
instant, at which time, 11 God permits, it is tnv ■, • °, , , • j • 1 • • 
purpose to reply to so much of Mr. Wickliffe's ed lt > and tnat the ldentlca f article which se- 
epeech as it may then appear my duty to notice, cured to slave holders their slaves until they 
With great respect, wer e paid for them, was the work of his 

t v w BE 5 T i B f R ^KINRIDGE.» fath 1 assisted b the ]ate Jud Wallace> 
To which I made the following reply: Tq ^ j ^ that ^ ^ gtory about 

"TO THE FREEMEN OF THE COUNTS OF his father having written out the Constitution 
FAYETTE." of '99, and of his penning the article on ne- 

"The Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge has ad- gro slavery, was a fabrication. On the con- 
dressed a note to you, that he, being called in trary that the Constitution of 1799 was, with 
the rrovidence of God, to visit his native land, r i . -u r» J c no 

is actually and in verv deed here; and that after fe ^ amendments the Constitution of 92; 
extensive conference with friends,- and humbly and that the article relative to slavery was, 
seeking of guidance from above, he has come to verbatim et liter atum, the same as the Con- 
the conclunov, in no personal animosity, to defend stitution of 1792, which was made at a Con- 
himseif, his friends, and his church, ayainst my c i • i l. • e *i 

charges and insinuations against them, which Y G ntl0n ° f ™ hlch ^ was not a mem- 

are equally false, malicious and injurious.— Der — one tn at was holden before his father 
Whether the gentleman has sought counsel ever saw Kentucky. On my thus exposing 
from above or below, to assist him in concoct- him, you know, that impudent as he was be- 
ing this tirade of vulgarism, I shall not de- f h he fe lfc d f h h 

scend to enquire. But notwithstanding the ' c n ' 

Reverend gentleman strongly intimates that completely crest-fallen; and you that were 
he is advised from above to make the threatened present know, that after I had finished read- 
attack, be assured, fellow citizens, that I will i n g the documents going to establish that the 
meet him on the spot that he makes it, not to Reverend gent ] e man had, in 1830, attacked 
hurl back upon him his gross vulgar abuse, , . , ° , , , , ' , , , , . A , 
but to satisfy both you and him. that his visions ihe "ghts of slave holders to hold their slaves 
from above of which he speaks, are fromanother born since the date of the Constitution of 
qua 1,1 - 61 " 1 " 1792, which, according to him, his father 

In pursuance to the gentleman's own ap- had condescended to give you — that he 
pointment we met — we were heard, and af- had, by his speeches delivered in the hearing 
ter we were — you did decide. But not as he and presence of the slaves of the county, 
says, by shouts and plaudits of his great self, and his written publications, (as I verily be- 
but as far as the opinions of a concourse lieved corrupted the slaves,) so that in less 
could be gathered from their acts, you sus- than twelve months after you stopped his 
tained me and condemned him. You heard mouth by the election of 1830, more rapes, 
him distil his stench by the hour, until he more murders and arsons were committed by 
foamed at the mouth like a fretted viper, and slaves throughout the county, than the history 
until he closed with a flourish of compli- of the county gave an account of from the 
merits to you 5 his own dearly-beloved friends foundation of the government. To estab- 
and neighbors. But you heard me in reply, lish these facts, I read a transcript from the 
and worse still for poor Robert Judas, you jail records of the county, which I think 
heard the damning proof I gave you from his showed committals of slaves for capital of- 
own mouth, of his guilt and corruptions, un- fences, to at least fifteen in number, convic- 
til you were not only astonished, but the tions to nearly half that number, and the exe- 
miserable wretch constrained to beg you to cutions of several of them. By the same 
allow him to explain. Many refused; but document I showed that there had not been 
he was again heard, and all he could say was an execution of a slave for any offence, for 
< — that what he said was his private opinions, upwards of fifteen years, before the gentle- 
and he had a right to utter them, and then to man's undertaking to enlighten our slaves 
charge me with slighting his father's memo- upon the subject of their rights under the 
ry, by giving to George Nicholas, credit for Constitution. 

acts performed by his father. He said George The gentleman, as you also know, to ap- 
-Nicholas was not one of the convention of pease your indignation at these disclosures 
'99, but that his father was, and that his on him, attempted a set off against his con- 
father, and not George Nicholas, had writ- duct in 1830, his having fallen out with his 
ten out your Constitution, word for word, brother and co- worker in abolition, George, 



[ •> J 



Tliompson, and his falling out with, and 
abuse of the whole British and Scottish cler- 
gy, whom he summoned to meet and hear 
him denounce his brother Thompson at the 
city of Glasgow, and who sat as umpires be- 
tween him and the said George Thompson, 
because they decided that his accusation 
against Thompson — that he had not done all 
he could to relieve the poor slaves of their 
masters, or to rob the masters of their slaves 
in America, was false and malicious; and 
because they further represented to the whole 
body of Presbyterians throughout the world, 
that while brother Thompson had conducted 
the debate with the decency of a gentleman 
and the meekness of a Christian, that the 
Rev. Robert Judas Breckinridge had acted 
throughout like a bully and blackguard — in 
utter disregard of the decencies of discus- 
sion, and the duties and forbearance of a 
Christian. 

From these documents, introduced by the 
gentleman, I attempted to show, and did, as 
1 think, show conclusively, that the Rever- 
end gentleman, in this disgraceful conflict, 
was playing the game of his great prototype 
and namesake, Judas Iscariot — that he was 
bargaining for the pieces of silver to betray 
his country — that the only quarrel between 
him and Thompson was, whether he should 
supersede Thompson in the custody and 
management of the universal emancipation 
fund raised in Europe and America, to be 
distributed among hireling editors and un- 
principled vagabonds, to circulate incendia- 
ry pamphlets in the slave States — to corrupt 
the slaves — to excite them to revolt and 
blood-shed — to bum the houses and cut the 
throats of their masters. I think I further 
showed from the gentleman's own books, 
that if he was not after the control and cus- 
tody of the funds to be applied in America, 
that his object in the negro war between him 
and Thompson, was to supplant Thompson, 
or to have him succeeded by some more dex- 
trous hand in forcing the slaves loose from 
their masters in America. These extracts of 
the gentleman's speeches from his own books 
and papers, I have already laid before the 
public. 1 had barely finished reading these 
documents, and was proceeding to apply 
them to the gentleman, when without notice, 
or my knowledge of the intention of one of 
the most respectable citizens of the county, I 
was stopped by his taking a stand, and offer- 



ing a resolution for the consideration of the 
crowd — in substance, that I should consent 
to return to the Senate, which was received 
with enthusiasm, as I then thought, and still 
think, and passed by an apparent unanimous 
vote of the most crowded Courthouse of free- 
men that I think I ever witnessed. If there 
was a dissentient present I did not hear his 
voice. 

The decision of the assembly was not that 
of a promiscuous crowd, but the deliberate 
voice of the "bone and sinew" of the coun- 
ty, who, seated in the Courthouse, deliber- 
ately heard and considered every word that I 
uttered, and every paragraph I read. The 
wealth and intelligence of Fayette were nev- 
er more fully represented than on that occa- 
sion. The call on me was too flattering and 
imperative, and from too high a source — the 
freemen of Fayette (whom I had loved and 
served for nearly a quarter of a century,) for 
me to refuse. I assented, and although the 
gentleman's miserable negro faction started 
their man, and had him out a piece of a day 
against me, they withdrew him to avoid a de- 
feat as signal as that which Judas himself 
met with in 1830. 

I obeyed your call — I was elected — -none 
opposing me. And this is the triumph this 
pious son of the church boasts he obtained 
over me. If ever the events of a day grati- 
fied me, surely that day, the last day I ever 
addressed you, did. I knew that the gen- 
tleman had pretty well worn out with his 
Church — that he hated and despised the re- 
straints upon his brutal and fiendish temper, 
which the exterior forms of a clergyman im- 
posed upon him — and that he only wanted 
the countenance of the great body of the 
people of Fayette to return to the county, 
and to again commence the work of aboli- 
tion upon a large scale. • 

The pitiful squad of negro advocates had 
assured him a victory, and a consequent sup- 
port from the county. But thank God! and 
you, too, my countrymen and neighbors, the 
gentleman will still have to wear his impos- 
ture until that church, which he has literally 
ruined, and in which he has disgraced and 
scandalized the very name of Christian, 
shall arouse from her delusion and expel him 
from her bosom! A Judas, who, if he has 
not, like his great exemplar, betrayed a God, 
has betrayed his church into errors which 
have severed the bonds of Christian love — - 



[ 6 ] 



thai causes the hearts of thousands of the 
devoted followers of their great head to bleed, 
and their eyes to weep over the desolations 
which those misguided and betrayed instru- 
ments of the second Judas have brought up- 
on their beloved Church! 

I may here be asked why I call the gen- 
tleman Robert Judas, when he avers, and 
has attempted to prove, that his name is Rob- 
ert Jefferson. I answer — 

1st. That I don't believe a word the gen- 
tleman says, or others say, about his father 
sticking the long J in his name. 

2d. I profess to know something of the 
gentleman's real name, and of his father's 
intercourse with Thomas Jefferson at, before, 
and after the advent of this second Judas. 

3d. I have a traditional tale, both as to the 
gentleman's real name, and of the time and 
manner of the long J coming into the Bible, 
between the plain name his father gave him 
of Robert, and Breckinridge. 

4th. I care not what he was called when 
in swaddling clothes, before his vices were 
portrayed upon his fiendish and felon coun- 
tenance; I contend that I have, and the world 
has a right, to give him a popular name ex- 
pressive of the vices of his heart. 

5th. I claim the right to give the gentle- 
man a name, as he has taken the privilege 
'Of giving me one that 1 neither own myselt 
nor derived from my father. 

This privilege of giving popular names, 
characteristic of the virtues as well as the 
vices of the heart, is coeval with Christianity 
itself. For instance, we call Richard I. of 
England, "Richard the lion hearted:" we 
call Edward of England, "Long-shanks;" 
and say "Alfred the Great;" Ave call An- 
drew Jackson, "old Hickory," and Anthony 
Wayne, "Mad Anthony;" and our demo- 
crats have designated a Secretary of the 
Treasury, who was famous for cutting off 
the heads of democratic office holders — 
•"Butcher Swing" — instead of plain Thom- 
as Ewing. 

] admit, however, that the person who un- 
dertakes to give a name, is responsible for its 
fair application to the person to whom it is 
attached. 

This responsibility 1 assume, and leave 
the world hereafter to choose between the 
name the gentleman has given himself, and 
that I think he ought to be best known by. 

In the first place, my incredulity in the 



gentleman's story, that he was named at his 
birth, by reason of a special request of Thos. 
Jefferson, by his father, Robert Jefferson, 
arises upon various grounds. 

1st. I doubt whether John Breckinridge 
had ever seen, much less was intimate with 
Thomas Jefferson, before the birth of this 
gentleman. 

2d. Because, at the time, for some time 
before, and long after, the advent of the rev- 
erend parson, Jefferson was too busy play- 
ing Speaker-President of the Senate, and in 
intriguing for the Presidency against Burr, 
to think of the little gentleman that was to 
appear at Cabell's Dale, nor do I know how 
Mr. Jefferson couH certainly know that this 
Star in the West was to be male or fe- 
male. Again, when I reflect how many 
white children, Indians, mulattoes and ne. 
groes were called Thomas Jefferson, I can- 
not conceive why Mr. Jefferson should have 
such a penchant for a namesake, as to be- 
speak one in the parson, when he should be 
born. Besides, that he should solicit a name 
so outre of his race as Bob Jefferson. Now, 
Ave have heard of Peter Jefferson and Tom 
Jefferson, but who ever heard of Bob Jeffer- 
son before the long J was placed into the 
family bible? Indeed, tradition further in- 
forms me, that at, or about the important era 
that marks the nativity of the hero of my la- 
bors, that he had a rich old bachelor uncle 
called plain Bob Breckinridge, who was on 
a visit to his brother, the father of the parson, 
when Judas first saw the light; and that the 
child was called for the bachelor; and that 
the maid of the lady being equally fortunate 
with the mistress, during the visit also gave 
birth to a son, which she called Bob Breck- 
inridge, after the old bachelor. 

This is, I presume, the same Bob Breck- 
inridge that is said to have been gambled off 
by Judas upon a single game of Bragg; 
and who was an attentive listener to the gen- 
tleman's abuse of me at the Courthouse in 
1840: and is one, with others, of the slaves 
of the gentleman's father, that went the same 
way, and that the parson leaves to wear the 
galling chains of slavery, while he is preach- 
ing up the sin and curse of slavery, and try- 
ing to divest other people of their slaves. 

Again; I refer the profession to the numer- 
ous bills, answers, declarations and pleas, 
which I filed while I was attorney and coun- 
sellor for the gentleman and the co-heirs, at 



[ 1 \ 



the instance of the gentleman, of his brother, 
his brother-in-law, and the administrators of 
his father, from whom I received the names 
of his father's children, in which the long J 
never makes its appearance, although the 
names, double and single, are as they were 
called, and are now called, of every mother's 
son and daughter of them, besides the parson. 
But above all, look into the bill filed by his 
aunt, written by Judge Barry, to which she 
swears, and in which she does, as he himself, 
and all his brothers did, call him plain Rob- 
ert Breckinridge, leaving out the long J. 

Again; I once had a student of good heart 
and talents, who was rather fond of the par- 
son's company. Knowing his intimacy with 
the gentleman, after seeing him advertised a 
coward, with a J in his name, I asked my 
student if he ever knew that he, (Judas,) had 
a double name. He answered yes. He told 
me that he put the J in his name to prevent 
people from giving him a nickname, (such, 
for instance, as lying Bob, &c.) to distil 
guish between him and other Bob Breckin- 
ridges of his family. That he intended the 
J to mean Johnson — that is, the J would an- 
swer either to the name of Col. Robert John- 
son, or would designate him as the son of his 
father, whose name was John, and therefore, 
he might be called Robert John-son, &c. 

I may err, but I as firmly believe as I can 
believe a fact I only know by circumstances 
and traditions, that the Reverend gentleman 
never thought of turning the J into Jefferson 
until he entered into the combination, about 
the year 1829, to set the slaves of Kentucky 
free. When he thought that the great name 
of Thomas Jefferson, who had ever been an 
emancipator, would aid him to figure in the 
abolition ranks; and hence, 1 think, the su- 
perhuman story that the name of Jefferson 
came in between Robert and Breckinridge, 
by the Providence of God, is utterly false. 

_ Having given my reasons why the long J 
did not originally mean Jefferson, I therefore 
think that the world has as good right to say 
what it means as the gentleman himself has. 
I will now assign my reasons why I have, 
and always shall, give the gentleman the 
cognomen of Judas. 

1st. A J will stand for Judas as well as 
Jefferson; and a long J may stand for both 
Judas and Iscariot. 

2d. A correspondent who signs himself 
Anastasius, assures me that the world is 



in error as to the real birth day of Judas Is. 
cariot. That he has carefully examined the 
records and chronology of that imposter, and 
has no doubt that he was born on the same 
day of the year that the Rev. Judas Breckin- 
ridge was. He also mentioned a most ex. 
traordinary coincidence in the lives of these 
two impostors, in another fact. He affirms 
that on the 14th day of our July, Judas, be- 
ing in the 27th year of his age, stole a widow's 
ass from the market place in Jerusalem, and 
fled with it to Nazareth, where he was ap- 
prehended and thrown into prison, from 
whence he escaped, and after committing 
many crimes and offences, ' finally imposed 
himself upon the disciples of the Saviour, 
and was received as one of the Twelve! 
Now if the reader will look to the 14th 
page of my reply, he will see that the instru- 
ment of writing by which Robert Judas de- 
frauded his aunt Meredith out of her land, 
bears date the 14th of July, 1826, the very 
day that his great prototype is said to have 
stolen the widow's ass. I do not know who 
this Anastasius is — I place but little reli- 
ance upon fabulous or chronological stories 

I set the statements of Anastasius down as 
about ^as probable as Miller's account of the 
world's end; but like that fable, one cannot 
help thinking about it. 

Indeed, I recollect when in childhood that 
a hired girl of my mother's had a little histo- 
ry, adorned with pictures of the betrayal 
and crucifixion of the Saviour, and that 
among the prints was Judas, represented 
with a downcast, sly, doggish countenance, 
with a pair of huge whiskers, treating with 
the Jews for the thirty pieces of silver to be- 
tray the Saviour— I think it looked very 
much like my Judas. I have no drawing of 
our Iudas when he was negotiating with the 
universal emancipating society, and of course 
cannot say whether the likeness to him was 
very striking. The same book exhibited 
Judas kissing the Saviour, and slyly handing 
him over to a Roman soldier — here I recog- 
nized the likeness in the sly wink of the eye, 
and the smirking visage which our Judas often 
assumes when he salutes a former compan- 
ion at farro and poker. 

The third scene is Judas counting the 
cash. As I did not see the gentleman when 
he obtained his aunt's release to her land, I 
am unable to make a comparison between 
the gentleman and his great examplar in this 



r s j 



scene; but the fourth leaf exhibited Judas 
Iscariot suspended by the neck with a rope — 
here the likeness was striking to Judas when 
delivering his speech at the Courthouse. He 
was represented with a most fiendish grin 
upon his face, with dark shaggy hair, and 
with a mouth full of coarse bluish teeth, his 
cheeks and chin almost covered with soot 
colored whiskers. 

You that saw the gentleman exhibited on 
the 12th of October, 1840, with his sneak- 
ing and stealthy looks, and his blue china 
artificial teeth, rattling and shaking in his 
mouth like the dry bones of the valley of 
Gath, can well imagine the likeness of Ju- 
das Iscariot. Added to this are the remarks 
of a gentleman of much knowledge of the 
world, derived not only from books, but ex 
tensive travel and observation upon the dif- 
ferent countries he has visited. This gentle- 
man was attracted to the scene of Mr. Breck- 
iniidge's exhibition by his advertisement. — 
He visited me a few days afterwards, and 
seemed, not even then, to have recovered 
from the shock which the frightful face of the 
Reverend Judas had given him. "My dear 
sir!" exclaimed he, "what a countenance that 
man has! I would no( sleep in a room with 
him. Were you ever in Spain, sir?" I an- 
swered, "No," "Well," says he, "you will 
have to visit Spain, and see her galley con- 
victs from the mountains and passes of the 
Pyrenees, to find a match for that fellow's 
countenance. I expected to see a hateful 
object; from the man's advertisement, I knew 
he must be an impudent impostor in religion, 
but I expected to see him look like common 
hypocrites. I think the J in his name stands 
for Tom Jefferson, does it?" I answered, 
"Yes." "Well," rejoined he, "it ought to 
stand for Judas Iscariot — for since that im- 
postor hung himself, I presume the w y orld 
has not furnished such another face as I wit- 
nessed on Monday." Added to these potent 
reasous, I have another; and that is, that I 
shall be enabled, by the simple word Judas, 
in some measure, to avoid the use of the ap- 
propriate replies to the scurrility of the par- 
son, who has strewed through his ninety 
pages the words rogue, villian, liar, trai- 
tor and scoundrel, drawn from his prolific 
magazine of billingsgate, which he filled 
from the stews and brothels of New York, 
Lexington and Frankfort, before he became 
a pious follower of the lowly Jesus— as Judas 



Iscariot had filled his magazine of falsehood 
and slander from the brothels and sinks of 
Jerusalem. Indeed, as his very name im- 
plies liar, rogue, traitor and villain, I shall, I 
trust, have less trouble to find appropriate 
language to rebut the parson's impudent slan- 
ders, by and through the immortal name of 
Judas, without so often using the necessary 
adjectives to explain and present in proper 
lights, the vileness and impudence of my ac- 
cuser. 

Before I introduce to the reader the de- 
fence I intend to make, I beg leave to re- 
mark, that the constant effort of the Rever- 
end gentleman to make an impression that 
he is only defending himself against my cal- 
umnies, is only a Judasism, befitting both 
the character and the standing of the being 
that wears both the name and the counte- 
nance of the impostor that betrayed the Son 
of God. 

A short retrospect will be necessary to 
show Judas in this attempt at making his vile 
slanders on me s a defence of himself, in his 
true character. 

In the first place, he says that I attacked 
the abolitionists that had banded together to 
set the negroes free, about the year 1829, of 
which he says he is one. I have already de- 
nied this. I have declared more — that I did 
not believe that the Reverend Judas was, at 
the date of my circular, in combination with 
the abolitionists. I have said that that cir- 
cular contained not one offensive expression 
against man or mortal, and that I did not in 
it attack the abolitionists, or any member of 
the associated club, nor did I then know of 
its existence, but that among other things, I 
did advise my constituents not to vote for a 
convention, as a new convention would, of 
necessity, open the discussions upon the slave 
question. In it I declared myself opposed 
to the idea of perpetual slavery, and willing, 
whenever a plan should present itself for the 
emancipation of the slaves of the whole 
Union, to give it my support; but that I was 
not willing to see the then order of things 
changed or the slave question agitated. 

This is the substance of what I said. I 
have not that paper before me, or I would 
give what I said, word for word. This, cer- 
tainly, could offend none; and so far from 
its attacking the gentleman's precious self, 
he actually read it to you to prove that I was 
a greater abolitionist than himself. And yet 



L 9 J 



tMs is all the plea the gentleman has for 
charging me with attacking him before the 
year 1840. 

In the year 1829, it seems that a party 
did confederate in the Slates of Kentucky, 
Alabama, Ohio, and perhaps other States, to 
aid and assist the general cause of aboli tion. 
That it commenced its operations in Ken- 
tucky by starting or subsidizing several print- 
ing presses in the State, in such places as it 
was thought they could operate with most ef- 
fect, and the establishment of an emancipa- 
ting or abolition society in Lexington. 

This combination, after agreeing upon the 
line of operation thus far, then agreed upon 
certain writers and speakers that were to 
take the field in favor of the grand scheme of 
universal emancipation. At this period I 
have no doubt the gentleman's ire was exci- 
ted at the thought that he should, instead of 
roaring in a Congress Hall, be ruled down 
by the restraints of the church on his sensu- 
al pleasures, and consigned to the precincts 
of Breadalbane by the voice of his country. 
Under this state of feeling, to render him- 
self famous, he joined the emancipators, 
and ushered through the public press his 
famous abolition papers, which I have read 
to you. 

It is known to you that in 1830 the gen- 
tleman again resolved to try his success be- 
fore the people for a seat in the Legislature, 
and deelared himself boldly and openly the 
champion of the negroes, resolved upon ef- 
fecting their ultimate emancipation. How 
he was met and how he was defeated, I have 
heretofore explained. Here arose an epoch 
in the life of Judas. He had for nearly ten 
years been a loafer and and lounger, of what 
he is pleased to call the noble profession of 
the law; while others of his age made for- 
tunes, the miserable Judas did not make salt 
to his mush. If ever he received one fee or 
plead one suit I have no knowledge of it, al- 
though he was continually marching and 
counter-marching from the country to town, 
and from town to the country, and posting 
himself for business for the whole period. I 
think he is the only human being I ever knew 
to hang on the bar for ten years without, as 
far as I know or believe, ever having a soli- 
tary client. Feeling his great pretensions 
overlooked by his country, Judas sought and 
obtained a theatre where his talents might be 
seen and felt. The legislature and party 
I 



discipline elected him; but here, as &l th<& 
bar, he could do nothing. His legislative 
career was a continual debauch, and in 1828 
he was wagoned home with a wretched repu- 
tation and a ruined constitution. 

He took, however, a little more than a 
year to recruit, before he made a fresh start 
in politics as the friend and advocate of ne- 
gro rights. For nearly six months before 
the election the gentleman poured forth his 
effusions upon the public ear from Breadah 
bane, in favor of universal emancipation, 
and then travelled the country and stump- 
speeched it in all directions — cozening the 
dear people by every art, but when the elec- 
tion was over, Judas was not only beaten but 
distanced. Of nearly twenty-five hundred 
voters, three candidates to be elected, Judas 
obtained one hundred and seventy-nine votes, 
all told; which proved that he had, in fact, in 
the whole county, but about fifty voters who 
made him first choice. 

Thus refused by the voice of an indignant 
and injured people, Judas was compelled to 
seek a new theatre for his mighty talents. — - 
He had, for ten long years, tried the law- 
he had starved at that; he had tried legisla- 
tion, and disgraced himself at that; he had 
again wooed the dear people, but they had 
not only refused but spurned him. In this 
dilemma, what was Judas to do but to act 
as did his great exemplar when he broke jail 
and fled from the place of his disgrace— join 
the church and fly his country! The Rever- 
end gentleman accordingly, before the close 
of the polls, announced that his couase Was 
before him, and that he Would pursue it, and 
leave the wretched freemen of Fayette to the 
fate which awaited them — only putting forth 
for them a prayer that God would not utterly 
destroy them on account of their ignorance 
and perverseness in slighting his merits. — 
Sinners that knew him best part'- d with him 
freely — but the saints that knew him doubted 
him; and hence, the gentleman took the 
hiwt that a prophet was without honor in his 
own country, and fastened himself upon the 
church among strangers, to whom he boasts 
of his success as a lawyer and statesman, to 
convince them what a prize the church had 
acquired in his own dear, precious self. Af- 
ter Judas became one of the Twelve, and 
the poor slaves who had been the deluded 
victims of his seductive speeches, had aton- 
ed on the gallows for thdr crimes, you for 



L 10 1 



ten years enjoyed peace from the corrupters 
of your slaves, when a new negro party was 
formed in the city of Lexington, and Judas 
hearing of it, and believing mischief was 
brewing, was here large as life, to give it di- 
rection and effect. On his arrival the con- 
spirators greeted him with their salutations, 
and until the appointed time arrived, feasted 
him upon wine and beef; and tnen, as I have 
stated, led him forth for action, with like 
pomp and circumstance that jockies bring 
up their race nags to the starting pole. Of 
this you saw much, and of which I have here- 
tofore written. 

The gentleman had professed to meet you 
to expose the falsehoods I had, in August, 
uttered against him and his beloved church. 
When he read my speech, he could prove 
that I said that he was a candidate in 1830, 
and had declared himself in favor of eman- 
cipation. This the gentleman admitted — 
of course no slander. I had stated that the 
gentleman had written certain numbers in the 
Reporter and Commentator; this the gentle- 
man also admitted, and declared if he had 
one hundred dollars to spare he would give 
it to republish them — of course, no slander 
there. But he stated that I had untruly ex- 
tracted an immaterial sentence in one of his 
publications. This I denied, and showed 
that the discrepancy complained of grew out 
of his false reading of what I had said — -of 
course no slander there. 

The gentleman's next complaint was, that 
I had said that he hadpassed the act to amend 
the act to prohibit bringing slaves into the 
State as merchandize, &c. This I denied, 
but admitted I had said that the abolitionists 
or emancipators were the authors of the said 
amendment; and to sustain myself, showed 
from the gentleman's written publications 
that he had suggested the amendment, and 
that in one of the numbers, Mr. Green, had 
not only contended for the amendment, but 
given the substance of the very amendment 
that passed the Legislature in 1833, as the 
amendment desired to aid in effecting eman- 
cipation. I did more, I showed by the 
Journals, that Judge Green had, nearly every 
year that he was in the Legislature after the 
organization of the emancipation society in 
Lexington, by himself or another, offered 
such amendment, until it was finally passed 
in 1833. In all this there was nothing slan- 
derous or personal; 



The gentleman then, with a demoniac 
grin, read the votes for the amendment, and 
my yea appearing for it, exclaimed, pointing 
to me, "creature, brute, &c." To this most 
brutal outrage I replied, that it was true my 
vote appeared on the passage of the bill, I 
having just taken my seat, to vote on a local 
bill, from a sick bed. That the journals 
showed that I had not been in my seat for five 
or six previous days, and had, on that day, 
only voted late in the day for the negro bill, 
and the local bill, relating to the city of Lex- 
ington, and next, before the adjournment; 
that I had no doubt, that if my vote was cor- 
rectly recorded, that I had voted under a mis- 
take of the question or of the bill, which, al- 
though it professed; by its title, to be only 
an amendment to the former act, totaliy 
changed it, and in many particulars violated 
the Constitution itself. That by the rules 
of the Senate, a bill is read by the title, ex- 
cept on the second reading, or when the Sen- 
ate especially ordered it to be read. That 
upon the first and second reading of the bill, 
the journals showed that I was absent, and 
did not show that the bill was, by order of 
the Senate, read on its passage. That I had 
no recollection of the passage of the act, nor 
did I know of its existence until two years 
after its passage. That I had, upon all oc- 
casions, opposed Mr. Green in his attempts 
to pass similar acts, and should, if I had 
known the contents of the bill I voted on, 
most certainly have opposed its passage; 
and showed from my votes, on similar bills, 
that I had voted against them. That in 
1839, when I took my seat in the Senate, 
a bill was introduced to modify and repeal 
this negro bill; that 1 had voted for it. That 
I believed the negro bill, as well as the act 
of 1814, plain violations of the Constitution 
— that they had rendered the entire wealth of 
the State, real and personal, less, by more 
than one hundred millions of dollars, than it 
would have been if they had never passed, by 
putting a full stop to emigration into the 
State from Virginia, Maryland, and the other 
slave States — that I believed these acts were 
the light-houses by which the abolitionists 
steered their course in their incursions into the 
State, to corrupt our slaves, by exciting them 
to mutiny and rebellion, to commit murders 
and arsons, and other high crimes and mis- 
demeanors; and that the fact of my vote ap- 
pearing on the journals in fovor 6f the law, 



[ n J 



under my views of my duty, I felt more 
bound to effect its repeal, than I should do 
if my vote stood against the bill, as it did 
against every other attempt to pass such a 
bill. There was nothing offensive or person- 
al in this, and thus far the parson seemed to 
want materials to begii? a complaint of any 
kind. He then declared that I had spoken 
disparagingly of him and his beloved church. 

In this, that I had said that, he was the best 
orator of the clique, which he considered ir- 
reverend and disrespectful to him and the 
other w T orthy men of his party — that they 
were not a clique, but honorable gentlemen 
— that the statement that the sentiment of 
universal emancipation had ever been avow- 
ed at its first introduction by the General As- 
sembly, or any part of it, was utterly false, 
and a slander upon his beloved church — for, 
that the subject had never been before the 
Assembly. 

To this I replied, that I could see nothing 
iisrespectful in what I said about the associ- 
ates in favor of emancipation. That no dis- 
respec was intendedt so far — surely there was 
nothing personally offensive on my part. 

But in relation to the church, after dis- 
claiming any desire to say or do anything de- 
rogatory to the church, but the contrary, 
I avowed that I had said and intended to say, 
that there was a party in the General Assem- 
bly of the Presbyterian Church, that had 
avowed sentiments in favor of universal, 
emancipation, and that the gentleman knew 
it had been considered of, and avowed by the 
majority of the whole Assembly. 

To prove wmich statement, I read a stat- 
ute of the General Assembly, passed in the 
year 1818, declaring slavery to be sinful, 
and that it was the duty of all Christians to 
use their utmost to have it abolished in Chris- 
tendom, and throughout the world. 

Here the Reverend Judas seemed to tire 
at a discussion of his principles and defence 
of his conduct upon the subject of slavery. 
The subject was too much an up-hill one 
for him to let loose his gall and spleen with 
effect. So far the discussion related to the 
question of slavery, and on my part not a 
single allusion is made to the gentleman's 
private character or business; and had the 
discussion stopped here, the public w 7 ould 
never have heard of the gentleman's private 
life and villanies from me; nor would the 
certificates of hi? brothers, Davy, John and 



William, have been necessary to give the 
gentleman brass enough upon his face to 
make another rally; nor would the names of 
his father, and mother, and sister, have been 
bandied between us. And reader, here, at 
this point, commenced the disgraceful and 
scurrillous discussion, which the gentleman 
has forced upon the public ear and upon my- 
self. Beaten and confounded from his own 
speeches — his own papers — in fact, being 
without an excuse for making a speech at 
all, as all I had said of his principles and 
actions, as a member of the negro associa- 
tion, was substantially admitted. Indeed, 
he affected to boast that he had acted as I 
represented him to have done. But the gen- 
tleman was after his sweet revenge;, and he 
was in the hands of several gentleman who 
had joined the church — as drunkards take 
the temperance pledge or forswear the bot- 
tle — to bind them to their good behaviour; 
and there were in his knot of blackguards, 
that hissed him on to assail me, not a lew 
of the open and avowed sons of the devil. 
Judas must do something for his thirty pieces 
of silver — he must, at least, before he hand- 
ed me over to his followers for crucifixion, 
give me the kiss. He commenced in his 
new career by expressing his once love and 
respect for me, and to prove what he said 
true, he read a most encomiastic paragraph 
which he had published of me, when he was 
trying to set our slaves free in 1829. 

Having thus prepared the audience to be- 
lieve his falsehoods, he proceeded to say, 
that I had been the retained counsellor and 
attorney of his father's administrators and 
heirs, from the death of his father up to 1830, 
when for treachery and mismanagement of 
the estcte, he came to an open rupture with 
me, and dismissed me from his business. 
The gentleman proceeded to charge — 

1st. That I was in private life and pro- 
fession a notorious champerner andmaintainer 
of suits, and had to the ruin of families turn- 
ed them out from their houses by such guile- 
ful practices. 

2d. That I had refused to pay turnpike 
gate fees, and insisted on my overseers and 
negroes passing free of loll, while the free- 
men of Fayette had to pay toll. 
' 3d. That I had purchased clothing for my 
negroes on credit, and had plead the statute 
of limitation, and thereby defrauded the poor 
.manufacturer out of his, debt. 



[ 12 ] 



4th. That I had appeared for money as 
the hireling of a negro called Moses, who 
was guilty of rape, and had wantonly assail- 
ed and villified the character of the innocent 
and injured oiphan upon whom the rape was 
committed. 

5th. That I was a cowardly scrub, and 
dare not have said what 1 had, but that his* 
hands were tied, being a clergyman. 

These were the heads of the gentleman's 
remarks, together with much vulgarity and 
abuse, with which he interlarded his speech. 
I again repeat, that this is not only a fair 
statement of the first personal abuse that 
passed between us, but that in repelling it 
throughout, I have confined myself to a de- 
nial or a retort to his charges as made; and 
that although the life of the gentleman, with 
many damning facts relating to him, are well 
known to me, and easily proven on him, I 
have passed by them when they are not im- 
mediately connected with the charges, state- 
ments, or abusive scurrility of the gentleman 
on myself. 

To prove his first charge false, I replied 
that it was not true that I ever was the re- 
tained counsel or attorney of his father's ad- 
ministrators or heirs; and it was grossly false 
that he ever had cause to suspect my integ- 
rity, or ever did suspect it, and explained my 
connexion with, and what I did for the es- 
tate and children of John Breckinridge. See 
my speech, and more of this hereafter. 

To the second charge I replied that it ill- 
became him to charge me with champerty, 
whose father was an extensive champerner, 
and had, when a member of the Legislature, 
as I was informed, procured a law to be pass- 
ed, making champerty and maintenance law- 
ful. 

That the first champerty suits I ever man- 
aged was as successor of his father, and that 
the entire proceeds of his champertous con- 
tracts, were earned by me, and divided be- 
tween the gentleman and the co-heirs. That 
I had, in an extensive and long practice, 
been much engaged in land suits, sometimes 
for plaintiffs and sometimes for defendants, 
and often interested in the event of such 
suits, but of all the cases I ever had, none 
had ever given me equal pain to the one 
brought by me, for Judas and his brethren, 
against his old aunt Meredith, his father's 
only sister — but of this I shall speak hereaf- 
ter. 



To the third, I answered that the statement 
that 1 had refused to pay turnpike gate fees, 
when and where due, was a falsehood and a 
base fabrication. 

To the fourth, I replied that it was a base 
fabrication and falsehood. That I owed no 
man a farthing for clothing for my slaves, and 
never was sued by a merchant or manufac- 
turer in my life, as I very believed, for any- 
thing. 

To the fifth charge, that I was a poltroon, 
and that if he were not a clergyman I would 
not dare to treat him as I had done, that I 
ought to take warning from the fate of my 
son, &c, I replied, in substance, that I ad- 
mitted I never had been a duelist or a man of 
blood when I was young, though always 
ready and responsible for my conduct to all 
honorable men. That I had steered clear of 
duels by taking care to behave myself; and I 
believed I had always as much courage as 
served me to compel gentlemen to treat me 
with respect, and as much discretion as was 
necessary to keep me from provoking a gen- 
tleman into a duel with me, I being in the 
wrong. But that it ill became a parson, 
and missionary from Heaven, too, to be 
boasting of his personal prowess, and the 
vengeance he w r ould take were he not a 
parson. Especially, that he w T ould seek 
the blood of a man verging to his three- 
score and ten years. That all this strut 
and bluster of parson Judas about his dex- 
terity with the pistol and his courageous 
thirst after blood, was mere stuff. That it 
was true that before his courage was tested, 
he passed for a mere Dare Devil and Fire 
Eater — that he talked largely of cutting 
men's throats and ears off — of blowing out 
their brains, and by this blusteringfrighted the 
timid and Hectored over many, but he at 
last missed his msn. That he attempted 
to frighten a little sleepy-eyed Doctor that he 
supposed a fit subject to pass off and play off 
before the assembled fair, especially his 
sweetheart, his menace and insults upon. 
He thought that the fair would adore him for 
his heroism, and after having given the in- 
sult, he bore off his fair one in triumph, not 
dreaming that so mild and unassuming a 
youth as the Doctor, w 7 ould dare to ever 
think of calling to an account such a cheva- 
lier as the parson. But the Doctor was on- 
ly too gallant to retort in the presence of the 
fair, and allowed Judas to sleep upon his 



[ 13 1 



laurels for the night. The next morning's 
sun, however, brought with it trouble for Ju- 
das. The Doctor's note was handed him. 
A fight or a foot race was before him, and he 
did not hesitate long which to choose. He 
housed himself, and stuck to his fair one's 
apron strings, closing fast the outdoors; when 
the Doctor first published him a coward, 
and then patroled the streets for his corpora- 
tion. Judas sent his apology — the Doctor 
still insisted on a fight — but this fiery son of 
the church got the Lodge to say the apology 
was sufficient, and thus ended the bloody af- 
fair, and thus ended the bloody career of the 
Terrible Robert Judas Breckinridge. 

Others, as well as the Doctor, found out 
that the parson could not stand gunpowder, 
and gave the gentleman little peace until he 
took sanctuary in the Church. 

These are the only issues tendered or join- 
ed between the parson and myself. Those 
about his negro notions and negro plans, in 
fact, admitting of no other issues or evidence 
than was read and tried by you, the people, 
at the Court House in 1840. To sustain 
these charges, and to disprove my set-off 
against them, has cost the Reverend Robert 
Judas Breckinridge so much of \ds precious 
time and occupied so much of his pious re- 
flections, and yet the hypocrite and impostor 
pretends that I have personally first assailed 
his pure and spotless character, and that he, 
pious soul, is only defending himself, his be- 
loved church, his father, his brother John, his 
brother Davy, his biother William, and 
above all, his venerated mother. It will be 
found, that in every instance in which Mr. 
Breckinridge has personally assailed me, I 
have confined my reply to the charge made, 
and to the persons introduced by himself, 
and not by me. The creature, conscious 
that he had neither character nor veracity to 
sustain him in a conflict with myself or ano- 
ther, that even by a majority of Presby- 
terians in America, he is despised and detest- 
ed, and by all Christians that knew him, 
was looked upon as a disgrace to the very 
name of Christianity; that no man that 
knew him had, or could have, any respect for 
him or confidence in him, puts his church in 
the front of the battle. He calls on her to 
put on her armor, and come to the rescue of 
her beloved son. 

I repel the charge that I have either injur- 
ed or designed to injure tke ehurck or tht 



persons the gentleman thrust into the con- 
troversy. He accused me of robbing his 
father of civic laurels, and placing them on 
the brow of George Nicholas. I had only 
said that George Nicholas, a great lawyer and 
statesman, had drafted the Constitution 
of 1791-2, and the article relating to slavery, 
with every sentence in it; and that he nor 
any other human being but the Reverend 
slanderer, had ever thought that after-born 
slaves were born free under it. I did state, 
that on the contrary, when the abolitionists 
had gained the ascendency in the State, par- 
ticularly at Lexington, that Nicholas called 
them before the people of Fayette, exposed 
their schemes, and opened the eyes of the 
people, and, aided by John Breckinridge and 
others, at the next general elections, changed 
the popular voice against the abolitionists 
throughout the State. Here the gentleman 
charged me with not giving his father credit 
for the great things he had done, but crediting 
George Nicholas, who, so far from doing 
what I gave him credit for, he said was not 
even a member of the Convention of 1791. 
That it was his father, with the aid of Judge 
Wallace, that penned the article relative to 
negro slavery; and his father, and not George 
Nicholas, that drafted the Constitution of 
1799, which the Convention of that year 
passed. To this I replied: It is not true, 
sir, that your father drafted the Constitution 
of 1799, especially the article concerning 
slaves — that article is copied from the Con- 
stitution of 1792, and was in existence be- 
fore your father ever saw Kentucky. Your 
father's name wants none of your creations 
or stories like these. Here closed my strug- 
gle with the gentleman in 1840. After my 
exposing his falsehood, he gave notice he 
dined with Mr. Irwin that day, and I saw no 
more of the gentleman until he presented his 
famous libel of 1841, in which he reiterated 
all the charges I have noticed, and through 
his inventive genius created as many more. 
He had, in his outset, declared that he would 
vindicate himself before the freemen of Fay. 
ette. To you his first speech was made, 
and his first book dedicated — false as both 
the speech, verbal ano written was — vile as 
was his language — he has since determined to 
present falsehoods that you know to be such, 
in a language still more filthy and scurrilous, 
and having found no favor from you, has 
bespattered me with falsehoods too obvious, 



t 14 ] 



and in language too low and vulgar to re- 
ceive, as he hoped, any reply from me. He 
says he gained a great victory over me before 
you, whom he had the impudence to insinuate 
were my packed jury. Why has he turned 
his back on you, I ask? Because he knew 
I had promised never to speak or write to 
him, nor think of him, if I could help it — 
hence he raised the flood gates of falsehood 
and billingsgate, not on you, but on me di- 
rectly, hoping to escape without a reply; but 
as I have before said, he shall not escape; 
and although I have heretofore nailed him to 
.the counter, a counterfeit Christian, a reck- 
iless liar, a calumniator, and a shameless 

■ braggart and coward, he has had the consum- 
mate impudence to again intrude upon the 
public ninety pages, fraught with every vari 
,ety of falsehood and abuse, in his most fin- 
ished style of brothel and Newgate elo- 
quence. When I last addressed you, I de- 
clared that I knew I did myself no good, in 

.exposing the wretched liar and hypocrite — 
thai I knew if I attacked the skunk I should 
have his stench distilled upon me; but that I 
.hoped to do the world some good, and the 
Presbyterian Church much good, by expo- 
sing to the world's gaze, in the gentleman, a 
being deformed with every vice, possessed of 
the most impenetrable impudence and shame- 
less mendaciousness, a vile impostor, relying 
on his father's name and the protection of : a 
Church he had disgraced, to sustain him how- 
, ever guilty. I knew then, and know now, 
the gentleman's great strength as a brothel 
debater. 1 knew, that of his race, he had 
been the blackest sheep. I had heard and 
believed that the gentleman, being too per- 
verse and worthless to learn anything in 
Kentucky, his brother tried him at Princeton; 
but that even there, where the gentleman 
says so often I was at College, he could not 
stand good behaviour but a few short months, 
and from whence he u^s, for his gross im- 
propriety, discharged, to wander in quest of 
a school suited to his habits and taste. Some 
say he tried to enter Cambridge and Yale, 
with bad success — but my best information 
is, that he got shelter nowhere but in a school 
that harbors and takes in the refused of other 
Colleges, for which it has received the name 
of Botony Bay among the students of the 
regular colleges of the East; and that on his 
way he put up at the Devil's House in the 

■ city of New York, where he no doubt ac- 



quired a perfect knowledge of the brothel 
and billingsgate oratory with which he has 
nauseated and is nauseating the American 
literati, and for which he is so terrible to all 
pious Christians who dare oppose him, and 
all decent men who incur the envious and 
malicious censures of the gentleman. I 
knew well, that the gentleman, like the Ken- 
tucky pole cat, was the most dangerous in 
the retreat. That animal, as you that are 
old enough to recollect it, know, is a vile 
thing, though it lives upon young birds and 
chickens, and by nature is a despicable, 
stealing, pilfering animal, that fears every, 
thing that will give it battle, yet it is the 
greatest braggart of all the forest. It will 
hoist its tail and make demonstrations of bat- 
tle with the haughty buffalo and with the 
hunter on horseback, but the moment a bat- 
tle is offered, even by a hen to protect her 
brood, the vile thing throws down its flag and 
flies, and wo to those that pursue! It first 
distils its odor, so as to protect its retreat, 
and the harder it is pressed the worse the 
stench — and if ever overtaken and slain, it 
distils more copiously, even in the last ago- 
nies of life. So that the very earth and veg- 
etables around the place, become surcharged 
with its poisonous effluvia to such an extent 
that it requires a winter's frost to purify the 
ground. So with my adversary, the harder 
I press him the worse the stench. I expect 
him to continue, like the beast I describe, un- 
til he exhausts his virus and dies. 

However, from the copious showers he has 
shed in his last ninety pages, I have the con- 
solation to believe that the gentleman can't 
hold out much longer, and that the next book 
will be the signal of the death-agony of the 
beast; and my friends may also console 
themselves that my enemies will have to quaff 
most of the tainted and feted breeze that his 
poisonous breath shall emit; for if I mistake 
not the signs, few others have snuffed his last 
emissions, and still fewer will be the victims 
of his future essays. 

The gentleman's charge that I have slan- 
dered his great father as well as his great 
self, shall be now considered. 

To the charge that I have slandered the 
gentleman, I affirm: That I have neither 
called him an honest man nor a man of 
truth, and that no man can slander him, say 
what he will of him,, unless he charge on 



[ IS ] 



him that he is an honest man, a man of truth, 
and is neither a hypocrite nor impostor. 

To the charge that I have either slander- 
ed his father or disparaged his memory, far- 
ther than to state incontrovertible facts may 
do so, I give my indignant denial. Certain- 
ly I must be more forbearing than a consci- 
ousness of my rectitude will allow me to be, 
to be assailed by the biped with his father's, 
mother's, and brother's names, and the abuse 
of all but the father, who is not living to 
join them, if I tamely submit to his taunts 
and insults, without removing their names 
out of my own way, while defending my- 
self. Let us see if I have or not spoken dis- 
respectful of his father, much less slandered 
him. The gentleman, in the malignity of 
his heart, first assails me and my brother, 
averring that we both proved traitors to his 
interests, as our client-— the one by advising the 
mode of distributing the loss among the un- 
fortunate lot-holders in Bardstown, and the 
other, by running up Ormsby, to save his 
own lot to satisfy the claim. 

He affirmed that but for us his father's ad- 
ministrators would never have been involved 
with Ormsby;* that his father's claim was a 
plain one, secured by mortgage, and incon- 
trovertible. I pretend not to give the woids, 
but take the substance of the slanderer's 
charges. How was I to reply to these wick- 
ed and villanous falsehoods but by making a 
statement of the case, and an exhibition of 
the evidence parol and written, that could 
and would have been used in defence of 
the settlers, if I had not advised, and my 
brother pursued the course he did, by which 
the whole debt was made without a contro- 
versy, except with Ormsby? A bare state- 
ment of the case showed, that in point of 
law and equity, the heirs of John Breckin- 
ridge were not entitled to a farthing from the 
devisee of Beall. How could I, then, ac- 
quit myself for ruining young Beall and dri- 
ving him off with his amiable wife and 
daughters to the inhospitable shores of the 
Arkansas? He and his wife there to die, 
and to leave his five daughters, beautiful 
and young, in the wilds of that country, des- 
olate and destitute, with no friend but God to 
protect them! But by declaring, as I did, 
that had I ever seen or read Johm Breckin- 
inridge's bond to Beall, I never would, I 
never could have aided in thus wronging 
and oppressing of Samuel Beall. 



I will now state this case, as can be verified 
by the records, and by the testimony of the 
dead as well as the living. 

The case is, that John Breckinridge being 
owner of about six forty-eighths of the iron 
works property, (and not eighteen forty-eights, 
as Judas has often and over affirmed, know- 
ing that he affirmed a falsehood,) sold those 
six shares, or about that number of shares, 
to George Nicholas and Walter Beall; for 
the whole of which shares, Beall became 
paymaster to Breckinridge, and Nicholas, as 
to his moiety, executed his bond to W. Beall 
for a cash amount not precisely known — 
but I believe $4000 for Breckinridge's six 
shares. Beall gave his bond, to assign to 
Breckinridge the bond of Samuel Beal for 
a thousand acres of land, in the valley of 
Beargrass, then estimated at about eighteen 
thousand dollars, and also his obligation to 
assign Samuel Beall's bond, obliging his 
Executors to assign to him six hundred 
acres of land below the mouth of Dren- 
non's Lick Creek, estimated at three dollars 
and one-third of a dollar per acre. Breck- 
inridge obtained a deed for the thousand 
acres, and an assignment of the plat and 
certificate of survey of the six hundred acres 
— and a patent issued to him for it. This 
contract was made in 1798. I do not know 
the precise amount of shares of John Breck- 
inridge, but from the amount of shares held 
by Nicholas, Beall. Greenup, and John 
0 wings,' the latter holding full half or more 
of the shares, Breckinridge, I think, could 
not have owned more than six forty. eights, 
as I have before stated. For that trifling in- 
terest, he obtained a thousand acres of the 
best land I think I ever saw, and that within 
three miles of Louisville — a part of which 
land, I am told, has been sold at three hun- 
dred dollars per acre, and the entire tract, 
depressed as the times are, can be now sold 
for one hundred thousand dollars. I profess 
to know the value of land in Kentucky both 
at the date of the contract and now. I own 
most of the entire company's property, and 
hold lands adjoining and within the compa- 
ny's ideal bounds, of greater value than that 
of the company at the time of the sale. 
And 1 will now give the company's whole 
property, except about two thousand acres 
which I do not own, but will add to it 
adjoining lands of equal value to those I do 
own, for the one thousand acres of land 



Breckinridge got for bis six shares. I say 
more — that I would not, on the 1st day of 
March, 1798, have given the one thousand 
acres on Beargtassfor every inch of land 
and the whole property of the company, with 
their debts on them. Under this great spec- 
ulation, Breckinridge got himself out of a 
load of debt, daily accumulating, and es- 
caped utter iuin, while Beall parted with the 
most valuable tract of its size in Kentucky, 
and assumed Breckinridge's load of debts. 
No claim is put up by Breckinridge for a 
mortgage — nothing said about the loss of the 
six hundred acres on Drennon's Lick Creek, 
until Beall finding himself on the brink of 
ruin from the debts of the company, becomes 
deranged, when Breckinridge ent-ers his 100m 
as the witnesses swear, and obtained from 
him an acknowledgment that he owed him 
a thousand pounds on the face of a mortgage, 
for the payment of which he put in pledge 
nearly or quite one hundred thousand dol- 
lars' worth of property. The mortgage, 
drawn by Mr. Breckinridge himself, (a law- 
yer,) carefully omitting the consideration 
given by Breckinridge to Beall for the £1000, 
and bears date the 23d of April, 1801. con- 
ditioned to pay the £1000, after the death of 
both Breckinridge and Beall. I brought 
suit upon this mortgage without any know- 
ledge of its nature, other than its face exhib- 
ited. To wit: That Beall owed Breckin- 
ridge a thousand pounds. To this bill no 
one of the defendants filed an answer but 
Samuel Beall- — nor was there a deposition 
taken until the time for sitting the cause 
down for trial expired, when 1 set it down 
upon the bill, and answer and replication as 
to Samuel Beall, and on the bill taken con- 
fessed as to the rest of the defendants. 
Thus situated, there being no proof to sustain 
Samuel Beall's answer, the decree of fore- 
closure was had as matter of course, and no 
trial either as to the sanity of Walter Beall 
or the consideration, was or could he had. 
On this state of the case the final decree was 
made, and the cause taken to the Appellate 
Court.- The questions of the sanity of Beall, 
or the consideration of Beall's mortgage, 
were not relied on or considered, but errors 
such as related to the setting down the cause 
for trial, the want of parties, &c. And yet 
has this libeller, Robert Judas Breckinridge, 
again and again affirmed that the Fayette 
Circuit Court considered of the insanity of 



Beall and the want of consideration, and de- 
cided him sane, and the consideration good, 
and that the Court of Appeals had also con- 
sidered him sane, and the mortgage founded 
upon a fair and valuable consideration — all 
which is utterly false. For the truth of this 
assertion I refer the reader to the record to 
and papers, and exhibit Harry L Bodley's 
certificate: 

In the case of Breckinridge's administrators 
us, Beall's heirs, &c., there appears no deposi- 
tions and answer, except that of Samuel T. 
Beall, upon which and the bill taken lor confes- 
sed the cause was heard. 

H. I. BODLEY, Cl'k. 
Is there a human being but Judas with a 
perfect knowledge that the Fayette Circuit 
Court never did act on either the question 
of sanity or consideration, aud that the re- 
cords would prove it — that would have had 
the audaciousness to aver that that Court 
and the Court of Appeals, had both settled 
the question of Beall's insanity and the con- 
sideration of the mortgage. But this is only 
of a piece with the like acts of the revereud 
impostor, in almost every attempt he has 
made to villify me, or to exonorate himself 
from crime. What renders the falsehood 
most glaring is, that Beall's heirs, as did 
Ormsby, both filed bills of revieiv alleging 
technical errors, and the deaths of some of 
the defendants, together with surprise, in the 
f ause being set down for trial before they 
filed answers and could take depositions for 
trial. To this bill I filed demurrers, which 
were sustained, and the Courts, both inferior 
and appellate, refused to open the decree, 
being of opinion that the executors and devi- 
sees of Beall had not used proper vigilance, 
or they might have defended themselves in 
the first trial upon the ground of the insanity 
of Beall, and the want of consideration or 
other valid defences. It is true that Samuel 
Beall in his answer, alleges both the insani- 
ty of his father at the date of the mortgage, 
and the want of consideration for the mort- 
gage, but of either produced no evidence until 
I obtained the final decree. I had, therefore, 
a right to believe, as I did. that he W T as mis- 
taken; nor did I ever think otherwise, until I 
found the bond where Judas hid it, as 1 be- 
lieve, and as I shall presently more fully es- 
tablish. When I found the bond in 1842, 
closely wafered up, and hid amongst the pa- 
pers of Breckinridge and Lee's heirs, I confess 
I was astonished: for 1 found what I never 



L ** 3 



could have believed but from seeing it under 
th o h a n d o f Joh n B rec k i n ridge h imsel f; th at 
is, that he had, on pjretence that the land 
was lost, or would be lost, against his express 
covenant charged Beall the £1,000, and ob- 
tained from' him a mortgage, on which I had 
been the cause of the utter ruin of Beall's 
devisee. I hastened to Frankfort, and for 
the first time carefully examined the proof of 
the insanity of Beall; at, before, and after the 
date of the mortgage, and found it absolutely 
overwhelming. Sweets, his butcher, Dr. 
Chapeze, his family physician, Walter Har- 
ris-, his private cleik, Col. WicklifFe, his 
intimate friend, the Hon John Rowan, his 
neighbor, friend and retained counsel, the 
Hon. George M. Bibb, Richard Lansdale, 
and many others swear to his-insanity before, 
at the date of the mortgage, and long after. 
-«ese witnesses were not only the neighbors 
and intimates of Beall, but visited him often 
during his insanity, and swear with a posi- 
tiveness that few cases of insanity would 
have admitted of, and which nothing but the 
strongest symptoms of derangement eviden- 
ced to them could justify. The witnesses 
were not only all respectable, but some of 
them stand in the official records of their 
country among its most illustrious statesmen 
and jurists. Against this mass of unim- 
peached and unimpeachable testimony, the 
reverend libeller adduced not a solitary wit- 
ness, unless what I swore can amount to any 
thing. For although he states, he produced 
against them the contradictory testimony of 
Robert Scott, of James Morrison, Cudberth 
Banks and Robeit Breckenridge, who prov- 
ed Beall to be sane at the execution of the 
mortgage, this is an absolute and wilful 
falsehood, for neither of the witnesses he al- 
ludes to, according to my best recollection, 
sw T ears that he had ever seen Beall for six 
months before or after the execution of the 
mortgage. Nor did either of them reside 
within less than seventy miles of Bardstown, 
•except Robert Breckenridge, and he resided 
in Louisville. It is true that his witnesses 
say they knew Beall, before and after 1801, 
•and they never considered him insane; nor 
■has the Rev. Mr. Iscariot been more truth- 
ful in statins; over and over ao;ain, that 1 had 
•sworn that Beall was not insane. What is 
my testimony? or so much of it as is materi- 
al? I state that I knew Walter Beall during 
ilic year 1801, long before and afterwards,. 



until his death. That 1 recollected hearing 
Felix Grundy say, in a laughing mood, that 
Tom Owings had run old Beall, that is, 
Walter Beall, mad, and of hearing another 
man, who 1 thought was a Dunn, who had 
business to settle with Walter Beall, reflect 
upon Beall for pretending to be crazy, and 
the deponent being in Bardstown, passed the 
door of the said Beall, and observed him 
walking through the house, from one door to 
another, and came to the conclusion that 
Beall was in a state of distress, but had no 
idea then, nor has he now, that Beall was 
deranged. This he thinks was about 1801, 
and afterwards, to- wit, sometime in 1803, he 
became the lawyer in most, or all Beall's 
business in Bardstown, and being sent for 
by Beall, in company with the Hon. Ste- 
phen Ormsby, who had, he understood, 
rendered Beall considerable service in getting 
him out of his difficulties, as was supposed* 
with Col. Owings, to Beall's house in the 
country, said Beall seemed to be in high 
spirits, and in the course of the night Ave 
spent there, Mr. Ormsby alluded to the af- 
fair of Beall with Mr. Breckinridge. Beall 
replied that he would fix that, or fix Breck- 
inridge; that Breckinridge had taken advan- 
tage of him, by mistating facts to obtain the 
contract, and went on to state the particulars 
in which he had been cheated and misled by 
Mr. Breckinridge, with some minuteness* 
and seemed to have the most perfect recol- 
lection about them. The particulars this 
deponent cannot now recapitulate; but that 
he charged Breckinridge with acting in bad 
faith, so circumstanlially, that the deponent 
mentioned it to Mr. Ormsby on their way to 
town next morning, by remarking that 
Beall told a bad story on Breckinridge, to 
which Ormsby replied, "Yes, but damn the 
old fellow, he won't tell the whole truth 
about it. The truth is, that Beall intended 
by his deed to Breckinridge, to cover his 
property, and Breckinridge intends to hold 
him to it." The conversation made the 
stronger impression on me. as it was the first 
imputation 1 had ever heard against the puri- 
ty of Mr. Breckinridge's character. I (de- 
ponent) afterwards married a relation of Mr. 
Breckinridge, and at his house he alluded to 
the subject. He spoke,with temper of Beall, 
so much so that I did not relate what Mr. 
Beall stated in my presence, but that, with 
other circumstances, tended to impress the 



[ is ] 



facts I have first stated, the more strongly on 
my mind. I (the deponent) lived in Bards- 
town, where 1 understood depositions were 
taken to prove Beall's insanity, in relation 
to the contract with Breckinridge, and re- 
member to have heard his counsel say he 
had proved him insane. This deponent can 
only speak from what he saw, and he has 
on his mind not a shadow of doubt that he 
was not insane. That at the time he spoke 
of the contract, at his house, he was as much 
in his senses as ever he saw him, and seemed 
to have a perfect recollection of the transac- 
tion. 

Question by complainant's attorney — 
(that is, Judas) — Were you in the habit of 
seeing Walter Beall frequently in the year 
1801? 

Answer*— I do not recollect whether I saw 
Mr. Beall frequently or not in 1801. I did 
not then live in Bardstown, but attended the 
District Court in 1801, and sometimes the 
Quarter Session Court, but no other particu- 
lar interview, in that year, is impressed on 
my mind, nor should I be able to state that 
it was in 1801, but from the fact that it was 
when I heard he was deranged, which I learn 
now was in 1801. 

In answer to the next interrogatory of 
Judas, I answer, that what I have stated is 
mere opinion, formed from what I heard, 
from seeing him, and from what passed after- 
wards. 

It was after he was released from his con- 
tract with O wings, as I learned he had made 
one, and which was the cause of his insanity 
or apparent insanity, I had the interview with 
him, in which he stated the facts concerning 
his contract with Mr. Breckinridge. I am 
not able to state further than I have, the 
facts on which I formed and have always 
since entertained the opinion that Mr. Beall's 
insanity was assumed, or did not exceed 
great distress of mind. I well remember to 
have heard it said in conversation by some, 
that he was deranged, and by others that he 
only feigned insanity. I wish it also to be 
understood, that although I knew Mr. Beall 
well, and frequently saw and conversed with 
him at various times and places, that I never 
had much to do with Mr. Beall, or his busi- 
ness, until abont 1803. — See this deposition, 
as copied in page 48 of the reverend slan- 
derer's last book. 

This deposition, in every particular, was 



incompetent, as I now believe, and told 
Judas when he insisted on taking of it, ex- 
cept so far as related to the statements and 
admissions of the defendant, Ormsby, the 
whole of the balance being mere opinion, 
founded on hearsay, and a single sight of Mr. 
Beall, without passing a word with him. — • 
Yet Breckinridge, with the blackest purpose, 
as I shall show, insisted on having it stuck 
into the deposition, saying the Chancellor 
could or would decide best what was and 
was not competent. When I gave the depo- 
sition, as he had avowed the ground he in- 
tended to take if Beall proved bis insanity, I 
advised him before he filed the deposition, or 
took the ground he intended to do, to take 
the advice of his lawyers, who managed his 
case with Ormsby, upon the propriety of 
either filing the deposition, or attempting in 
any way, to prove a collusion between his 
father and Beall, to cover Beall's property 
from his creditors. This he promised to do, 
and I always understood, both from Breck- 
inridge himself, and from one of his counsel, 
that his counsel had disadvised the use of my 
deposition, and that it was withdrawn; and 
a friend of mine writes me that the original 
deposition is endorsed, not read. This Ju- 
das knew — this he saw when he got the 
copy, and yet this pious son of the church 
pretends he can't tell why it was not before 
the Appellate Court! Judas, thou son of 
perdition, when will thy villainies cease? 
But more of this in another place. 

For the reader to understand the force and 
effect of this deposition, and the reasons for 
the opinion I then expressed, it should be 
borne in mind, that it was taken at the Court 
house in Lexington, on the 22d day of April, 
1826, that I had never seen a deposition in 
the cause, not knowing or believing that 
there were witnesses in the world, much less 
the first men of the age, that had sworn, or 
would swear, that Beall was insane. I 
formed my opinion upon the slightest possible 
evidence, a single personal sight, standing at 
a distance, and the vague and contradictory 
stories of others, and the fact that when I 
became his lawyer in 1803, Mr. Beall was 
sane, and narrated the facts by which he was 
defrauded. I had not seen the testimony of 
his clerk, if I had, I might readily imagine 
that Mr. Beall spoke, not from his own mem- 
ory, but from the account given him by Mr. 
Harris, of the manner in which he was cir- 



[ 19 J 



cumvented. I had certainly an opinion that 
Mr. Beall was not lunatic, and would still 
have remained of that opinion, had I no 
other light than I had in 1826, to form a 
judgment on. But when such men as Row- 
an, Bibb, Wickliffe, Chapeze, &c. &c, all 
swear from their personal knowledge, that he 
was lunatic and insane at the date of the 
mortgage, I no more now doubt his insani- 
ty, and my own error of judgment, than I 
doubt that Martin H. Wickliffe, Jacob 
Sweets, Waltei Harris and Dr. Chapeze 
ever lived, or that John Rowan and George 
M. Bibb still survive. Added to the high 
intelligence and exalted character of the 
witnesses proving the insanity of Walter 
Beall at the date of the mortgage, is the fact, 
that no one solitary witness, myself except- 
ed, that saw him then, ventured to even ex- 
press a doubt of his insanity; and my depo- 
sition, I aver, upon the information, not only 
of Jttdas himself, but his counsel, never was 
read. So that in the case of Ormsby and 
Breckinridge, the proof of insanity was not 
only clear, but overwhelming. Add to this 
fact, that Walter Beall was a man of general 
fair character; as good, I think, as that of 
John Breckinridge, or any other man in the 
State. 

Breckinridge had obtained from Beall a 
mortgage acknowledging that Beall owed 
him a thousand pounds. Beall denied that 
he owed Breckinridge anything, and that he 
had, when incapable of doing his own busi- 
ness, been induced to sign the mortgage for 
the £1000 debt. Thai the only pretext for 
the mortgage was a claim set up by Breck- 
inridge on him for the value of 600 acres of 
land, on a pretence that he had failed in his 
contract. That after recovering his capacity 
to do business, he knew that Breckinridge 
had imposed on him by pretending, contrary 
to the fact, that the land had been lost, or 
surveyed off of its ground; when by the con- 
tract, he was not to be liable for the title to 
the land in any event whatever, but only to 
endorse over to Breckinridge a bond on Saml . 
BealPs trustees, for an assignment of the 
platt and certificate of survey, or if the 
patent had issued, then binding them to con- 
vey the land to Breckinridge — that he had 
complied with his contract; and Breckin- 
ridge had actually obtained a grant for the 
land — to all which, Walter Beall swore. 
I state from memory, and refer the reader to 



BealPs answer, as filed, without these facts 
being before the Court of Fayette county, or 
being known to me. I closed the mortgage 
for Breckinridge's administrators, and made 
the debt for them in (1 think) the year 1822, 
five years before the decision in the Ormsby 
case. It is not true, as Judas states, that 
Beall had a counter part of the bond be- 
tween himself, Nicholas and Breckinridge. 
Breckidridge kept one part, and Nicholas, 
for himself and Beall, kept the counter part; 
and BealPs executors, as I believe, never got 
sight of the bond pending the suit in Fayette, 
nor was it ever produced, until Ormsby 
forced it out of Samuel Nicholas, one of 
Breckinridge's counsel, pending Ormsby's 
suit, with Breckinridge's heirs, in the Jeffer- 
son Circuit Court; and even of that disclosure 
I was totally ignorant, until by the bold and 
impudent falsehoods of the Reverend Robert 
Judas, I was driven to make diligent search 
after the bond, and found it almost miracu- 
lously, where he had, as he supposed, safely 
hid it from me. I discovered that the bond 
contained the express stipulation that John 
Breckinridge was in no event to hold Walter 
Beall responsible for the 600 acres of land 
made the pretext of the mortgage. And 
when I made a thorough examination into 
the records of the case of Ormsby and 
Breckinridge, and that of John Breckinridge 
and Walter Beall, I found that the proof of 
not only the insanity of Beall, was over- 
whelming, but that the injustice of the claim 
of Breckinridge and his heirs was fully es- 
tablished. I was guilty of declaring, that 
had I have seen the bond before I obtained 
the decree, that I would never have done so; 
and of further declaring, which I now do in 
the presence of God, and under the responsi- 
bility that I know I incur in appealing to 
Him for the sincerity of what I declare, that 
according to all I know, or can understand, 
the claim of John Breckinridge for the 
£1000 was without foundation in equity; 
and yet, under this strong conviction, I 
manifest my feelings in the following lan- 
guage, to-wit: If Mr. Breckinridge were 
alive, he might, and I hope would, assign at 
least a claim that would satisfy an honorable 
mind for his conduct. I have ever cherished 
for him while living, and for his memory 
since his death, the highest veneration, and 
nothing but to defend myself and an injured 
brother, from the slanders of Robert J. 



[ 90 ] 



Breckinridge could have induced me to lay 
bare the claim, on which I have been the 
unfortunate instrument of wringing from 
Beali's devisees, and others, for John Breck- 
inridge's administrators, neaily three thou- 
sand pounds. (See 64th page of my reply.) 

These are the remarks for which .the rev- 
erend Robert Judas has jeremiaded through 
ninety pages, about my slanders upon his 
distinguished father. Yes, reader, this pious 
son, after pursuing me with his father's,, mo- 
ther's, sisters' and brothers' names, as vouch- 
ers for his slanders — after publishing vile 
libels written upon me by his brothers, es- 
pecially his brother John — after quoting his 
sister Letitia as authority for his falsehoods, 
and parading no less than four certificates 
from his mother, he has only been heretofore 
able to provoke me to say what you see I 
have said of his father's claim. And yet, a 
stranger would believe that all our contro- 
versy was about his dear father's memory, 
his venerated mother, and reverend brothers. 
The whole amount of my statement is, that 
as the claim stands, Mr Breckinridge's claim, 
in my opinion, was unjust. If I had have 
seen the original bond, 1 would not have been 
instrumental in its recovery. Beall was as 
honest a man and had as good a character 
as John Breckinridge, and had denied the 
justice of the demand, and that on oath. 
Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Beall could not 
both be right, and the papers I saw prove 
that Mr. Breckinridge was wrong; and for 
this his hopeful son howls a lament of ninety 
pages, calling on all the blood of John 
Breckinridge, to join him in cursing me. — 
Pious son of the church! Pious Judas! 
how he loved his father! how his pious 
soul flows out in streams of wrathful in- 
dignation, against the despoiler of his 
father's great name! 

I will now, reader, exhibit the monster 
and impostor in his true light, as regards 
even this father, of which we have had such 
a sad lament. 

I know the parson well, and I know- 
many who know him well, and I think that 
I not only speak my own opinion of him, 
but that of all who did, and do know him, 
when I say that a more selfish, cold-hearted 
being exists not upon the earth — that such 
is the innate selfishness of the being, that he 
never could, as I verily believe, hear without 
wrathful emotion, the name of either his 



father or brothei Cabell spoken of with ap- 
plause . In the year 1825, I stepped into, 
the House of Representatives, when the par- 
son was pouring forth his vial of wrath upon 
the Governor of Kentucky, because, in a 
veto to the restoring bill, or some other mes- 
sage to the house, he had passed a high com- 
pliment to the talents of John Breckinridge,, 
and expressed some regret that he had not 
left his shade behind him in that house. It 
is true that the being never heard either 
named but he felt a rebuke to his own 
worthlessness, when contrasted with them, 
and he not only felt so, but was compelled 
often to hear them contrasted with him to his 
mortification and disadvantage, and this it 
was that set his mind to work to put down 
public opinion in favor of his father's memo- 
ry, and to raise up to himself enthusiastic 
followers, who would contrast him with his 
father, to the disadvantage of his father, but 
to his own glorification. To attain this base 
and ignoble object, he found it necessary to, 
raise a conflict with myself. Yes, reader, 
just as certain as the devil entered into Judas: 
Iscariot the first, and caused him to betray 
the Saviour, he entered into the heart of 
Judas Iscariot the second, and caused him 
not only to betray his father's memory into 
the hands of its enemies, but to raise a con- 
flict with myself, whom he well knew had 
been his father's friend while living, and the 
defender of his name when dead — and for 
the truth of this let facts decide. 

John Breckinridge was unquestionably an, 
intellectual and an accomplished gentleman,, 
and enjoyed a high reputation as a lawyer,, 
but was neither popular nor influential in the 
State until after the year 1798, when he rose 
into consequence upon nullification and the 
slavery question. As a proof of this state- 
ment, the reader need only to recur to what 
is now history. 

in 1795^6, Mr. Breckinridge put forth 
his claim to public consideration, by becom- 
ing a candidate for the Senate of the United 
States, in opposition to the late Humphrey 
Marshall, and was badly beaten; getting, as 
I believe, but five votes in the whole 
Legislature. In 1797, he offered to repre- 
sent the county of Fayette in the House of 
Representatives, and made uncommon exer- 
tions, as did his friends, to obtain an election.. 
He was opposed by a young man without 
house or home, and of very dissipated habits,. 



[ V j 



and beaten until the last day, and then 
barely secured his election. 

His friends and himself avowed that his 
object in struggling with Alexander McGreg- 
or for a seat in the Legislature, was to pre- 
vent the passage of an act providing for a 
Convention to amend the Constitution. He 
took his seat but failed to defeat the bill, it 
passing by an overwhelming majority. He 
offered again, and was the hindermost, I 
think, of six members elected. The other 
five being opposed to him on the Convention 
question, The bill for the Convention again 
passed the Legislature, Mr. Breckinridge 
exhibiting little strength against it. The 
law appointed the 1st Monday in August, 
1799, for the Convention to meet, and in the 
winter of 1798-9, George Nicholas took the 
field against the emancipation of slaves, the 
then avowed object of the Conventionalists; 
called together his famous Bryant's Station 
meeting, and with the co-operation of Breck. 
inridge and others, before the election in 
May, not only revolutionized public opinion 
upon the subject of negro slavery, in Fayette 
county, but throughout the State, so that, at 
the May election, the negro party, which had 
triumphed for the two preceding years, was 
prostrated to such an extent, that of all the 
members elected, there was found but one 
single abolitionist. Mr. Breckinridge was 
elected to both the Legislature and Conven- 
tion, and was received and treated as the 
champion who had, by his perseverance and 
talents, put down the negro demagogues, and 
saved the country from a miserable race of 
paupers, as well as protected the rights of 
property. He was not only on this very ne- 
gro question, rendered acceptable to the 
country, but elevated to the Speaker's chair, 
and the county of Breckinridge was named 
in honor of him. Abolition continued not 
only to die away as his popularity increased, 
but the abolitionists themselves, as men, be- 
came both unpopular and odious, until the 
session of 1800-1, when he was elected to 
the Senate of the United States, over Gen. 
Adair. 

It is true Mr. Breckinridge gained some 
popularity at the time, from his having offer- 
ed the nullifiication resolutions of '98, but 
that was short lived, as it was known that 
those resolutions were not his own work, but 
that of Mr. Jefferson, who had drawn them 
up and sent them to Col. George Nicholas, 



who used Mr. Breckinridge to have them 
passed through the Legislature; and their 
unsoundness was not only then understood 
by many, but so soon as their baneful doc- 
trines were unfolded, they were condemned 
by public sentiment, and are to this day con- 
demned by ninety-nine intelligent men out 
of a hundred, so that at the time that this 
son of John Breckinridge arrived at maturi- 
ty, the popularity and fame of his father 
rested almost exclusively upon his successful 
opposition to the abolitionists in Kentucky.. 
It was on that opposition that he w T as made 
Speaker — that a county w T as named for 
him, and that he was finally made a 
Senator in Congress. It was for this that 
Mr. John Breckinridge became known and 
respected, as the defender of the rights^ 
of property, and of Constitutional govern-, 
meat. 

For a series of years Judas seemed to have- 
been quiescent under the plaudits that grated, 
on his ears, to his father's memory, but his. 
endurance ceased in 1828. Here the devil 
entered into Judas, set him to tearing dowm 
his father's memory, and to build upon its; 
ruin the sable fabric of his own. To effect 
this he must be the antipode of his father in- 
religion and in politics. He abjures the 
church in which he was born and baptised — - 
denouncing its votaries as persecutors, and 
anti-christians — declares negro slavery to be- 
contrary to the word of God, and that the 
practice of negro slavery is upon the footing 
of common thefts, and the owner of slaves 
guilty of stealing and robbing the slave of" 
the property bestowed on him by the hand of' 
God and nature. He not only proclaimed 
this upon every occasion in his harrangues 
to the people of Fayette, but in his newspa- 
per published in Baltimore. He places 
slave holders in the line ef common thieves, 
pick-pockets, and robbers. [See page 27 
of my speech of 1840.] 

Here is the hopeful vindicator of his fa- 
ther's fame, placing that father in practice, 
upon the footing of rogues, pick-pockets,, 
and robbers. But is this all? Certainly 
not. Look into his ninety pages of elaborate- 
slander, and there you will see that this pious, 
son strives, in page after page, to throw the 
pilfering of his aunt Meredith's land from 
himself upon his brother Cabell and his 
father. He not only denies that his father 
ever intended to let his sister have the land, 



[ 22 ] 



but extracts, or pretends to extract parts of 
his father's letters, and written memoran- 
dums, and statements made to Robert Har- 
rison and others, and publishes them to 
prove that his father never intended to let his 
sister Meredith have the 355 acres of land, 
but was guilty of seducing her into a be- 
lief that he would do so, and then of deceiv- 
ing her. This is really too bad — and few 
sons could be guilty of such baseness. Yet 
it is in perfect chaiacter with Judas. 

He has even had the impudence or folly to 
discourse about the joint bond of Col. Saml. 
Meredith, of Virginia, and that of Samuel 
Meredith, Jr. as his security, for 355 acres 
of land, to his father, and his father's en- 
dorsement on a bond given by Samuel Mere- 
dith, his brother-in-law, to one Winston, for 
£163 specie, that he had bought from Win- 
ston for between fifty and sixty pounds, who 
had won it of Samuel Meredith, Jr., and 
that he, Breckinridge, had been paid the bond 
by Samuel Meredith, Sr., in a credit in his 
land contract. That with this gambling 
consideration, and otherwise, he had obtain- 
ed the deed of Meredith for about 600 acres 
of land, the whole estimated to cost only 
£360. He also states, that Samuel Mere- 
dith, Jr., as agent of his father, Samuel 
Meredith, sold and conveyed a part of the 
land, or that the survey fell short, so that, to 
compensate his father, Col. Samuel Meredith 
executed to him the bond aforesaid, with 
Samuel Meredith, Jr. security. That his 
father made this bond alone, the foundation 
of his claim against his brother-in-law, for 
the mortgage of the 355 acres of land. 
If by this manoeuvring to get hold of 355 
acres of young Meredith's land, and letting 
off old Meredith, Breckinridge intended to 
keep the land, it would be not only a grind- 
ing contract, but a plain case of overreach- 
ing and oppression: but if done with the be- 
nevolent view of providing for a sister, against 
the improvidence of a husband, it would 
have been benevolent aud praiseworthy. — 
Mrs. Meredith swears, and so does General 
Breckinridge, that Mr. Breckinridge avowed 
to them both, that his sole object in thus 
overreaching his brother-in-law, was to pro- 
vide for his sister and her family a home. 
And I could add to these oaths, those of at least 
two other members of the family, if such wit- 
nesses as General Breckinridge and Mrs. 
Meredith could be doubted, of Mr. Breck- 



inridge's repeated declarations of hisbenevo- 
lent intention to provide for his sister. And 
what does Judas say on this head? 

"True, my aunt thought and believed as she 
swore, and so did my uncle, but they were mis- 
taken, my father never intended to let her have 
the land, but [says Jadas] all the overreaching 
of poor Meredith was right aud lawful, because 
he was a law-breaking, turbulent man. My 
aunt was, to be sure, very truthful, and no 
doubt believed that my father really intended 
to secure Broedalbane for her, but she was de- 
ceived." 

Ah! Reverend and dear sir, ivho deceived 
her? Surely none other but your father. 
If you do not slander him, you affirm he 
never intended to let Mrs. Meredith have the 
land, and of course, that all his promises to 
her, his declarations to his brother James, 
and his own letter to Samuel Meredith, were 
intended to deceive her. Is this the charac- 
ter you give your father? Certainly. 
Now, reader, is not this gentleman a hopeful 
son, who admits that his father induced his 
sister to believe that he would secure the land 
and a home for her, not by his action only, 
but by both his written and verbal assur- 
ances; and on these assurances, obtained the 
aid of his sister in persuading Meredith, her 
husband, to make the deed to him, all the 
time intending to deceive both. And yet 
this reverend son not only avers and states, 
but files extracts of real or fabricated pa- 
pers, purporting to be written by his father, 
and even refers to the answer in chancery 
of his mother, and a deposition of his uncle 
Harrison, to prove his father never intended 
to let his sister have the land. If this be 
true of John Breckinridge, if this son of his 
do not mistate, what man would envy him 
his fame? All men, I am sure, would agree 
with his sister in the sentiment, when, with 
tears, she exclaimed to me: 

"God above knows! I loved my brother, and 
had unbounded confidence in him; but if he in- 
tended to deceive me, and take the land from 
my husband, while he was pretending to obtain 
it for me and my children, he mnst have been 
the worst man in the world!" 

And yet this is precisely the case, if his 
son do not wrong his memory. Judas ad- 
mits the credit and veracity of his aunt, and 
does not deny that of his uncle, and both of 
them swear to the fact of his father's most 
solemnly declaring that he had acquired, 
and that he held, and intended to hold the 
land for his sister and her children. But 
the reverend gentleman declares, maugre all 



[ 23 ] 



this, that his father never did intend to fulfil 
his promises, but always intended to secure 
the land for himself and his own children. 
Reader, is not this gross and infamous slander 
upon the memory of the gentleman's father? 

All who knew his father, know or be- 
lieve his statements to be not only untrue, 
but impossible. What a vindication of his 
father's memory does his son give the ivorld! 
He first admits, and proves that his father 
was engaged in buying up the gambling debts 
of his indiscreet brother-in-law, and caused 
the father of that brother-in-law to pay off 
the gambling debt of the son with land, and 
when a part of the land was lost, that he 
settled with the father, the damages, and 
took his bond, with his son Samuel as secu- 
rity. Holding of this bond,instead of look- 
ing to the real debtor, Samuel Meredith, Sr. 
made use of his sister to deceive her husband 
as to his real intentions, and obtained 355 
acres of land, worth double the amount of the 
sum due from old Samuel Meredith to him, 
Breckinridge. This is Judas's defence of 
his father's memory. On the contrary, I 
have constantly maintained and endeavored 
to prove that John Breckenridge was inca- 
ble of such base duplicity as his son charges 
him with. So far from it, that he made the 
promises to his sister, and the declarations to 
James Breckinridge and others, in good faith; 
and that he not only did so, but left some 
memorandum of the trust, as he promised 
his sister he would do — -but that the reverend 
parson, or some one else, did with that as he 
did with Beall and Nicholas's bond — sup- 
pressed it; aud when public opinion marks 
his conduct as odious, in taking from his 
aunt her land, he throws the odium upon his 
father, who he declares never intended to do 
what he is proven again and again to have 
promised he would do — that is, secure the 
land to his sister. On this subject, I refer 
the reader to the 11th. 12th, 13th and 14th 
pages of my reply to the reverend slanderer, 
where he will find the promises of John 
Breckinridge, to hold the land in trust, es- 
tablished by the statement of Mrs. Coleman, 
and by the oaths of Mrs. Meredith and the 
late Gen. James Breckenridge. 

But, reader, this is not all the reverend 
slanderer has done in his late publication, to 
blast the reputation of his father. In the 
27th and 28th pages of his libel., he exhibits 
what purports to be a copy of my deposition, 



given in the suit in Chancery — Stephen 
Ormsby, devisee and executor of Peter B. 
Ormsby, in substance following: 

I state that T knew Walter Beall, that I 
was informed by the late Felix Grundy, that 
T. D. 0 wings had run Walter Beall mad ? 
and that about the same time, I heard aman,- 
I took to be a Dunn, say he believed Beall 
feigned insanity; that shortly after, I passed 1 
the house of Beall, and saw him walking 
through his house, and thought he appeared 
distressed, but not lunatic* That this was in 
the year 1801, 1 believed. That I could not 
say it was in 1801, if I had not been satis- 
fied that it was in that year he was said ta 
be insane. That sometime in 1803, 1 spent 
a night with Mr, Beall, at his country house, 
in company with the Hon. Stephen Ormsby, 
when Mr. Beall detailed the circumstances 
of the controversy between him and Mr* 
Breckinridge, unfavorably to Mr. Breckin- 
ridge. That it being the first accusation of 
the kind I ever heard against Mr. Breckin- 
ridge, it made a deep impression on my 
mind, and on the road to town, I mentioned 
the story to Judge Ormsby, the defendant., 
who replied, "Damn the old fellow, he don't 
tell the whole truth; he intended to cover 
his property from his creditors, by conveying 
it to Breckinridge, and Breckinridge intends 
holding him to it." I also stated that I had 
heard some say Beall was insane, and others,, 
that he feigned insanity. That I did not be* 
lieye he was insane, &c. &c. 

This deposition was paraded to sustain 
the gentleman in his assertion that I had de- 
posed that Beall was not insane. It does not 
sustain the reverend slanderer in the asser- 
tion. It only gave my opinion of Mr. Beall 
from a superficial examination of him, and 
without speaking a word to him, or hearing 
him speak; that he appeared distressed and 
unhappy, but not lunatic, or mad. This 
was mere opinion, and was the weakest kind 
of evidence, if evidence at all. It was 
mere opinion, founded on hearsay, and a 
very slight inspection of Mr. Beall. But 
Juda3 insisted on my stating it, and I did so. 
A part of my testimony, however, was both 
competent and important— the confession of 
Ormsby, that Beall and Breckinridge had 
colluded together, to defraud or delay 
Beall's creditors. Before taking my testi- 
mony, the reverend gentleman asked me if 
the Court of Appeals had not decided that if 



t »4 J 



•'a man conveyed his property, with a view to 
delay his creditors, that he was guilty of a 
fraud, and could not be relieved in equity. 
I informed him that they had so decided. I 
will then take your deposition, said he. I 
expressed a disinclination to give it, and to 
prevent him from urging it, I told him if I 
gave my deposition, I would not appear as 
counsel, it being my rule of practice not to 
be a witness and counsel in the same case. 
He left me, but at a subsequent period. I was 
called on by him, with a Justice of the 
Peace, and gave the deposition, a copy of 
which he has exhibited in his last libel. 
But before I parted with him, I requested him 
not to file the deposition until he had advised 
with his lawyers, Duncan and Nicholas, up- 
on the propriety of doing so. He promised 
to do so; but from a letter from one of his 
counsel, which lies before me, it seems he 
took care not to do it, butslipt the deposition 
into the papers, where the counsel found it, 
and on the trial, declined reading of it s and 
as an evidence that it was not read, endorsed 
it, or had it endorsed, "not read." This the 
reverend Judas well knew, but with his usual 
hypocrisy and falsehood, avers that he cannot 
tell how the deposition came not to be before 
the Appellate Court. I was extremely averse 
to Judas's relying on the collusion between 
his father and Beall, although I believed that 
it might prove fatal to Ormsby; and this re- 
luctance, arose solely from my opinion of the 
character of the defence. Ormsby's opinion 
was strongly fortified by the nature of the 
case, and the situation of Beall at the time. 
First. Beall voluntarily acknowledged the 
debt of £1000, when Breckinridge had nei- 
ther moral nor legal obligation on him to do 
so. Secondly. The enormous amount of 
property mortgaged, being then worth more 
than one hundred thousand dollars, and all 
the property of value Beall in point of fact 
possessed, except his debt on 0 wings, of a- 
bout thirty thousand dollars, due for his share 
in the Iron works estate. To secure which 
Beall retained the title, and even this, he 
also, in about a year, mortgaged to Breckin- 
ridge, all to secure the payment of a £1000, 
not a cent of which was due. Thirdly. 
The indebtedness of Beall at the time, both in- 
dividually andas amember of the Iron Works 
Company, and the deposition of Harris, 
also proved the statements of Beall immedi- 
ately after making the mortgage, in sub- 



stance, that he had been induced to give the 
mortgage, believing Breckinridge to be his 
friend, and that he would assist him in his 
difficulties with his creditors. — See these pa- 
pers, all published in my reply to the second 
libel of the gentleman.' 

To my mind, nothing could be more re- 
volting than for John Breckenridge's son to 
take the ground 5 that Beall had confided in 
Breckinridge to cover his property, and had, 
to disguise the transaction, acknowledged a 
debt of a thousand pounds, and to secure its 
payment, had pledged to Breckinridge, by 
two mortgages, every cent's worth of proper- 
ty he had upon earth, and that Breckinridge 
had tak en a dvantage of him, and forced the 
payment, and so intended, when he drew 
Beall into the acknowledgment and mort- 
gages. Yet this hopeful son of Mr. Breck- 
inridge, this pious, weeping Christian, who is 
broken hearted because I have expressed my 
opinion against the justice of Breckinridge's 
debt on Beall, was contented to place his 
defence on that ground, and to that end, 
forced from me a deposition, proving my pri- 
vate conversations with Beall and Ormsby, 
and then filed it with a view to establish by 
me, that Ormsby had admitted that the con- 
tract between Beall and his father was had 
and contrived to cheat and defraud Beall's 
creditors, and that Beall could not, and 
Ormsby, who stood in his stead, could not be 
relieved, being party in guilt and fraud with 
his father. See the whole deposition, pub- 
lished in the Observer and Reporter of the 
18th of January, 1843, by Judas Iscaei- 
ot Beeckineidg-e himself. 

As I have said, Mr. Breckinridge has not 
only denounced negro slaveiy, as a curse 
and reproach, but in the African Repository, 
of 1833, he places the owners of slaves up- 
on the footing of pick-pockets and thieves^ 
and the holding of slaves as the worst of 
stealing, and this he has done, knowing that 
his father ivas not only a large slave holder, 
but that he toas a defender of the rights of 
slave holders, and had thereby obtained the 
chief celebrity and popularity he possessed. 
I am told, and that by credible witnesses* 
that at the abolition meetings that Judas has 
attended and gotten up, that his brother abo- 
litionists often complimented him for abjur- 
ing and renouncing the errors of his father* 
in relation to the "cause of the poor slave," 
as he terms it. What then is the conduct of 



[ 25 ] 



Mr. Breckinridge, in relation to his father? 
iPirst, to trample upon his memory by de- 
nouncing his practice, in relation to his 
slaves, a vile and naked robbery, and his 
father therefore a robber, and worse too, the 
greatest of robbers, because he was not only 
guilty of robbing the poor slaves himself, but 
vindicated the roberies of others, and had 
been instrumental in entailing upon the 
State, the curse of man-stealing, the basest 
of robberies. 

In one of his seven numbers in the Repor- 
ter, he refers to his father, and contrasts his 
opinions with his. He snuffs the fullsome 
flatteries and congratulations of abolitionists, 
for his abjuring the errors and crimes of his 
father — declares to the world that his father 
deceived his sister, that "he deceived his 
brother and others, in declaring to her and 
them, that he had used her and his own in- 
fluence, to obtain from her husband a deed 
for 355 acres of first rate land, for the sole 
purpose of providing for her and her chil- 
dren a home; and as I have said, not only 
declares himself, that his father intended a 
deception, but files letters, and publishes his 
mother's answer, and Robert Harrison's de- 
position, proving expressions and conversa- 
tions of his father's, going to establish that 
he never intended to let his sister have the 
land. He goes further. He publishes 
either real or fabricated extracts of letters 
and papers purporting to be from under his 
father's hand, to prove that he never intended 
to comply with his promises to his sitser— - 
and lastly, he attempts to prove from the 
confessions of Stephen Ormsby, in the suit 
between himself and Ormsby, that Beall 
and his father colluded together to delay and 
defraud Walter Beall's creditors, by Beall's 
conveying his property, in two mortgages, to 
his father, who had not only been thus guilty, 
of fraud, hut had even violated the faith held 
inviolable among thieves, in holding down up- 
on the fraudulent deeds, and wresting thereby, 
£3,000 or more, from the devisees and credi- 
tors of Beall. 

Thus, reader, I have given you but an 
epitome of this Robert Judas Breckinridge's 
love of his father. I could fill a volume 
with his acts, all tending to prove him as des- 
titute of filial regard to his father's name 
and memory, as he is of principle and veraci- 
ty. And here let it be remembered, that I 
do not ' endorse the slanders and libels of 
D 



I 



Judas on his father's memory; as 1 have said, 
I found Mr, Breckinridge, on acquaintance* 
to be an accomplished gentleman, and an 
enlightened statesman, and as I believed, a 
patriot. That so far as ever I investigated 
his conduct, except in this affair of Beall's, 
his motives and actions appeared fair and 
honorable, and were he living, he might, and 
I hoped would, explain the transaction, so 
far, at least, as to satisfy an honorable mind 
that he believed his conduct to be correct. 
Of his intention to rob his sister, I never 
have believed one word. So far from it, I 
would sooner have believed he intended to 
murder her. I believe the statement of Judas, 
that his father intended to defraud his own sis- 
ter and to swindle her husband, a base slander 
and falsehood, intended to screen that guilty 
wretch from the odium that attends the 
plundering of his aunt, that not only unfits 
him for the communion with christians, but 
should outlaw him' from the presence of every 
honorable man. 

The reader will again bear in mind, that 
the creature has forced me to speak of his 
father, and that I have confined my proofs in 
what I have said, establishing his guilt, to 
what attaches to himself; and here I would 
gladly close forever, any thing connected 
either with the acts or reputation of Mr. J. 
Breckinridge, but the audacity and false- 
hoods of his son forces me to state farther. 

After upbraiding me as the slanderer of 
his father, he is guilty of the consummate 
impudence of charging me with ingratitude 
to his father, to whom, he says, I owe my 
success in life; that I was of little note until 
I married his father's cousin, and through 
his favor and that of his cousin, General 
Howard, I am indebted for whatever distinc- 
tion I have had. I pretend only to give the 
substance, not the exact words of this speci- 
men of impudence and falsehood. He far- 
ther alledges, that his father was the friend 
and counsel of my wife, and of her mother, 
and that I have acknowledged that I owed a 
debt of gratitude to him for his kindness to 
his cousin, my wife. 

He has also had the further impudence to 
state, that I have had, at ail times, free ac- 
cess to his fathers papers, and may have 
abstracted my wife's father's will therefrom, 
as well as other papers. Now, reader* 
would you believe that this is the same being 
that made his aged mother, at least, i pre* 



£ 26 J 

iume, eighty years of age, and a paralytic to charge her with wilful untruth. I cm* 
for more than twenty-five years, give him no sider her, from age and disease guiltless of 
less than four certificates? The first certify- that, but that the falsehoods, the wilful false- 
ing, that there never existed a family friend- hoods that Judas has propagated under his 
ship and intimacy between John Breckin- mother's signature, are Robert Judas's alone, 
ridge and myself. The second, certifying who, to escape from the influence of his own 
that I never had access to his precious fa- crimes and offences upon public opinion, 
iher's papers. The third, that I was not at has endeavored to use, falsely to use, the 
his father's burial, nor did I visit him when certificate of a woman whose age and infirm- 
sick. And the last, and not least, certifying ity, with all who know her, render her un- 
that the long J was added to the name of fit to speak, much less to give certificates to 
her hopeful son, by his father himself, and vindicate her son in his falsehoods and slan- 
that at the instance of President Jefferson, ders; but if the wretched Judas has been 

In his last publication, he makes his father guilty of one ciime blacker than another, in 
my patron, and that of my wife's and their his efforts to involve his family in his contro- 
families. How then, Judas, came you to versy with me, it is in his obtaining the certu 
get your mother's certificate to prove that ficate of his brother John, in substance, that 
there was not even an intimacy between your he had settled his accounts and acted fairly 
father and myself? The fact is, that you as trustee of his father's estate, but had been : 
state false in both instances. There was no greatly harrassed and delayed by the treach- 
debt of gratitude due for patronage and ery of certain agents, and then publishing as 
friendly acts done to me by your father, there genuine, the fiendish letter he has from John, 
was a family intimacy only — the courtesies to him. When Judas obtained the certifi- 
usual between connexions were reciprocated, cate, John was on the verge of the grave, so 
as I stated, but I owed John Breckinridge low, if I am informed correctly, that he 
for nothing beyond personal kindness and was scarcely able to write his name, and, 
attentions, and this I paid him in like kind- Judas knew that every material part of the 
ness and attentions. He never did me a certificate was utterly false. He knew that 
favor — I never needed one from him; and it he had not settled his accounts with the es- 
is equally untrue, that I owe to him or any tate, and that the records of the Circuit 
one human being, any thing for my success Court would show that he had not settled 
as a lawyer. I had no patronage, and never them. He further knew that his certificate 
needed any, especially from Mr. Breckin- man, David Castleman, had for years pur- 
rigde. Equally false is it, that I had free sued him with claims on the estate, threaten- 
access to his father's papers, whenever I ing suit, &c. &c, and that another member 
pleased— as false as is the certificate of his of the family was still menacing him with a 
mother, that she never allowed me access to suit. His last effort is still more criminal, 
them. I never sought access to them, and as it regards the memory of his brother. Un- 
never had it but once, and then I had it by expectedly, I had been assailed by the 
permission of his mother, and in her pres- slanderer with unkindness, and with treach- 
ence, who unlocked the door that closed the ery to his father's family, and with slighting 
papers, or handed me the key to do it, when his father's memory. To repel these asser- 
I found the papers applicable to Wood's tions of his black mouth, I, from memory 
case, by which I relieved the administrators alone, gave an outline of my transactions, 
from the payment of nearly a thousand both with Mr. Breckinridge and his family; 
pounds, and the character of John Breckin- giving particular facts and circumstances, as 
ridge from the charge of having collected evidence, that I had on all occasions, been 
moiiey, as a lawyer, for a non resident, and not only the friend of John Breckinridge 
of converting it to his own use, and then re- while living, but of his memory since his 
porting to his client that he could not make death, and that 1 had faithfully and labori- 
his money, by reason of the insolvency of ously befriended every member of his family 
some, and the influence of others of his whenever I was called on to act, until, by 
debtors. the villainy and treachery of the slanderer, 

When I apply the words false to the state- 1 was compelled to withdraw myself from all 
ments aOIrs. Breckinridge, I do not mean connection with the business of the family, 



[ 27 ] 



It seems from John's letter, that on the 
publication of my speech in reply to the 
gentleman's attack at the Court house, that 
he sought advice from John, how to get out of 
his difficulty. That John advised him to 
seem bold — that he must advertise in the 
newspapers that he meant to reply — that he 
must, to effect his object, contradict my state- 
ments — that I have exposed myself by stating 
facts that I cannot prove. "Deny them," 
says he, "brother, and he can't prove 
them." 

This letter, it seems, was the sheet anchor 
of the attacks 1 have since received. I only 
intend to give the substance, or what is ma- 
terial, Now reader, when this letter is de- 
cyphered, what i-s it but a plan proposed and 
cunningly devised, between these noble 
brothers, to suppress the truth, by denying it, 
to prevent the true character of the contro- 
versy from being understood, by taking issues 
on immaterial facts, and pouring upon my- 
self such a volume of filth and abuse, to use 
the. language of the pious author, as will 
overwhelm me — that is, in plain English, 
John says to Robert, deny, brother, that he 
had any family intimacy with our father's 
family — deny that our mother ever let him 
see or search our father's papers — deny he 
ever saw you, or cared about you, when 
•you were sick — deny that he was at our 
father's burial, or even saw him on his 
death bed — deny he ever argued the case of 
Ormsby and Breckinridge — deny all, and 
you will catch him, and prove him a liar 
and slanderer — get Doetor Marshall to cer- 
tify he never was in your room when sick at 
Frankfort — get mother to certify he never 
saw my father when sick, and was not at 
his burial — get her to certify that she never 
let him see a paper of our father's — get 
brother William'' s and my certificates that 
you have fully settled your accounts as 
trustee to the estate — get others to certify, 

AND YOU WILL CATCH HIM, BEOTHEE. 

And faithfully did Judas. pursue the advice, 
and wofully has he suffered for it; for if I 
have not over and over again, by both parol 
and record, proven every denial he has made 
false, infamously so, but one, there is no 
such thing as truth or falsehood — and that 
one, I was deprived of the proof of, because 
every human being connected with the trans- 
action was dead, save Judas and myself. 
It was my statement that I was seoutity in 



the case of Lee and Breckinridge; he denied, 
stoutly denied, that I ever was security in the 
suit of Lee's executors against his father's 
administrators. 

Since my last publication, I have laid my 
hands on the records of that suit, and find' 
that I am the sole security in the last 
appeal bond. I refer the reader to the re- 
cord, both in the Woodford Circuit Court, 
and to a copy filed by the gentleman, of that 
record, in his famous suit with Beall. To 
prove the gentleman, even in that particular, 
guilty of wilful falsehood, I insert the fol- 
lowing certificate: 

I do certify, that it appears from a copy of 
the record frotn the Woodford Circuit Court, in 
the case of John Lee's executors vs. John 
Breckinridge's administrators, on file in my of- 
fice, that Robert Wickliffe is the security of the 
defendants in the appeal bond therein, dated 
12th July, 1825. 

H. I. BODLEY, C. F. C. C. 

The reader will ask, why did Mr. Breck- 
inridge file the letter of his brother John, 
after his death, that in tone, as well as in 
substance, comports so little with the pious 
thoughts of a dying christian, and must al- 
ways be a stain upon his memory as a divine. 
I answer, for the same reason he brought in 
the name of his mother, his brother William, 
and the name of his father, as well as Clay, 
Robertson and others. It was to make capi- 
tal. He knows and feels that he is not only 
suspected, but rejected as a christian, by 
even a large portion of the old school Pres- 
byterians, and looked upon as a monster of 
hypocrisy and imposture, by nine-tenths of 
the new school Presbyterians, and such is 
the estimate of all the Catholics, and of 
other churches who know most of the rever- 
end gentleman. Hence it is, by frequent 
use of popular names, he hopes to get cer- 
tain great partisans into the controversy with 
me. His poor brother John, no doubt, was 
a good and pious man, and as such, univer- 
sally received wherever he was known, 
until Judas entered the church, who had 
address and influence over him enough to 
get his certificate and letter, and he publishes 
them, regardless of the influence they may 
have on his brother's memory, as a christian, 
to show that he had at least the advice of one 
human creature, to act as he has done. He 
knows that his brother's memory has friends 
that condemn himself, and think little of his 
profession of religion; it is to mortify such 3 



[ 28 ] 



he exhibits John's letter when he knew, that 
even myself and family thought well of John, 
were sincerely his friends, and the fiend like 
Judas has intended to even deprive his broth- 
er's memory of our sympathy. It is a truth, 
which I utter in sadness, that my family and 
that of John Breckinridge, had ever enjoyed 
the kindest intercourse; that I respected their 
father and lamented his death, and that I 
devoted nearly twenty years of successful ef- 
fort, to the interest of his family after his 
death; that I not only regarded his children 
with kindness, but some of them with affec- 
tion; that I taught my childien to hold them 
in special regard and relationship, and that 
I thought, and still believe, I had the respect 
and affection of every child John Breckin- 
ridge had left, not excepting Judas himself. 
Indeed, I have the mortification to rest my 
eye upon an insolent letter of his, in which 
he says he regrets he ever loved me. After 
his villainous conduct in 1830, although I felt 
myself constrained to withdraw from the 
business of the family, I changed neither my 
feelings nor intersourse with the other mem- 
bers of the family, and those relations were 
cherished, I believe, by every individual of 
both families, Judas excepted. But this har- 
mony was what Judas could not bear, and 
he has at last succeeded in destroying it with 
such of the family as he can influence. By 
his treachery he deprived me of an opportu- 
nity of rendering his father's family much 
service in settling his estate, to the loss of 
thousands of dollars to portions of his family 
and decendants, who both need and deserve 
whatever is their right. 

A few remarks will show how this pious 
brother has heretofore, and is now treating 
the memory of his brother Cabell. 

On Cabell Breckinridge arriving at matu- 
rity, an act of the Legislature was obtained, 
authorising the Circuit Court of the county 
of Fayette to appoint a commissioner to su- 
perintend the business pertaining to the estate 
of John Breckinridge, prescribing his duties 
and authority over the estate. . One was, 
that he might sell the real estate, if the 
adult children assented. I may not state the 
act correctly, but it annexed a condition, that 
land should not be sold without the assent of 
the heirs, or of the adult heirs. The Circuit 
Court appointed Cabell Breckinridge com- 
missioner under the act, and he, as Judas has 
again and again stated, in his various libels 



against myself, discharged the duty, so far as 
I know or believe, with great fidelity, and no 
doubt in strict pursuance to his powers, in 
every respect. But he was cut off by death, 
to the irreparable loss of his family, and 
great Joss to his father's estate. ' On his death, 
Judas not only succeeded him in office, but 
succeeded to the possession of his books, 
papers and accounts. After he had done so, 
and I had, through the agency of the Court, 
put him in possession of immense amounls, 
in money and land, as I have heretofore 
stated, and had, as he supposed, a right to 
expect my fees to be paid me, he, for reasons 
I have heretofore stated, and for some I shall 
hereafter give, came to a breach with me, 
and his first letter to me contained a written 
notice, that I had transacted some business 
with his brother — had made -a compromise 
with him, which Cabell was unauthorised to 
make, in the following discourteous and un~ 
gentlemanly words: 

Sir: — Do you ever think of the ruinous com- 
promise into which you drew my late brother 
Cabell Breckinridge? Or do yau never fear that 
your recent treatment of us, may make us re- 
member that that compromise by which we lost, 
and you gained some thousands, was illegally 
entered into by our trustee, (that is, his brother 
Cabell.) 

Now, reader, what think you of a brother 
that would, for filthy lucre, first brand his 
dead brother with being a stupid dupe, or 
worse than any dupe, a dishonest sharper, 
who had taken upon himself to compromise 
a controversy illegally, and without authority? 
The compromise referred to, and the only 
one ever made between Cabell Breckinridge 
and myself, was the settlement of a contro- 
versy between his father's heirs and General 
Howard's devisees. The heirs of Breckin- 
ridge claiming one half, and the devisees of 
Howard the whole of patents granted to Pay- 
ton Short, for thirteen thousand five hundred 
acres of land, lying on the Ohio River, above 
Louisville. Breckinridge's heirs claimed 
the one moiety of the land, under a contract of 
their father, to investigate and settle the title 
to the land, by bringing suits, &c, for which 
the proprietors agreed to allow him one half 
of whatever was saved, and put Mr Breck- 
inridge in the possessien of Payton Short's 
deed, duly executed to them, for the whole 
tract, which he surrendered to Short without 
authority, and took a new deed to himself 
for an undivided moiety of the whole tract. 



[ 29 j 



This land, except about three thousand 
three hundred acres, was covered by adverse 
claims, and in actual adverse possession; but 
none of the adverse holdeis had had posses- 
sion twenty years, so as to either bar an ac- 
tion of ejectment, or a bill in chancery for 
the land, at the date of Mr. Breckinridge's 
undertaking. A brother of Mr. Breckin- 
ridge went upon the undisputed ground, and 
got some squatters to attorn to Holmes and 
others, the proprietors, and to Breckinridge; 
and although Mr, Breckenridge lived years 
after the date of the contract, he never brought 
suit for the land in adverse possession, that 
being immensely valuable, then worth at 
least fifty thousand dollars, now worth, say, 
one hundred thousand dollars. 

At the death of Mr. Breckinridge, the 
statute had commenced running, as to the 
two great interposing claims of John How- 
ard and John Brown, amounting in all to 
about ten thousand acres, and had fully run 
before the compromise alluded to. Breckin- 
ridge's heirs put up claim to no more than 
an undivided moiety of the 13,500 acres, ac- 
knowledging the unquestioned right of How- 
ard's devisees, as to the other half. 

John Brown was the cousin, and John 
Howard the uncle of Mr. Breckinridge, and 
Benjamin Howard, John Breckinridge's 
cousin. 

As Breckinridge had not performed his 
part of the contract, Holmes, and others, re- 
fused to allow his heirs any thing, and threat- 
ened to bring suit against them and the ad- 
ministrators for damages, for all lands lost 
by his failing to sue in time. Short's entry 
was a perfectly good one, and has been so 
decided to be by the Supreme Court. How- 
ard's entry has been' decided bad by the 
Court of Appeals, and Short's patent was 
older than Brown's, and Brown's entry was 
a vague one. But both Howard and Brown 
had, as I have stated, upwards of twenty 
years possession before the compromise, and 
no suit still brought. In this state of the 
question, it is not difficult to see what would 
have been the condition of the heirs of 
Breckinridge, who had covenanted to clear 
the land of conflicting claims, if the right to 
sue had fallen into other hands than it did. 
Indeed, so far had he and his administrator 
failed in executing of his covenant, that a- 
bout twenty years elapsed between its date 
and the compromise. On an action brought. 



it was my opinion, and is still my opinion, 
that nothing less than the value of the one 
moiety of the land lost, could have been a- 
warded against Breckinridge's heirs. But 
General Howard finding the land in market, 
bought in the whole claim, and instead of 
suing the administrators of his relation, let 
the whole matter rest until the eldest son ar- 
rived at age. He, however, after passing to 
me a moiety of the uncontested land, out- 
side of Howard and Brown, left the State, 
and died, leaving me full power to settle the 
whole matter with Cabell Breckinridge, as 
soon as he arrived at maturity. If not then; 
settled, with directions to close the contro- 
versy with suit; stating that he did not think 
his relations were entitled to anything, yet as- 
he had bought in the claim to give peace and 
quiet among relations, he cared nothing about 
the land himself, that I might give up to the 
heirs of Mr. Breckinridge a moiety of all th& 
land not disputed, outside of John Howard 
and John Brown's claims, and if that were 
not acceded to, suit must be brought to can- 
cel Breckinridge's deed, obtained from Short,, 
subsequent to Short's deed to Holmes, Sla- 
ter and others, and the matter settled by law. 
That if the busines was not closed, and I 
was driven to the unpleasant duty of suing 
Breckinridge's heirs, he would relinquish to 
me the w T hole of his interest in the land out- 
side of Howard and Brown. 

After Cabell Breckinridge arrived at full 
age, I communicated to him Gen. Howard's 
terms, and requested an answer. He desired 
time to consult with his uncle, Gen. Robert 
Breckinridge; and when I next saw him, in- 
formed me that his uncle advised him not to 
accede to the terms proposed, and that I 
must sue, which I did. Both parties being 
desirous of nothing but justice, the utmost 
fairness was observed in preparing the suit- 
When the suit was brought, Mr. Breckin- 
ridge employed Mr. Haggin, but on the day 
it was called for trial, he asked me to con- 
tinue the case a few days, that he might have 
the benefit of Mr. Bibb's aid. This I did 
not hesitate tc accede to, as I was satisfied 
that Bibb and Haggin could not fail to pre- 
pare him for what I knew must result, a loss 
to him of the land — for I had not only pro- 
ven a failure of Mr, Breckinridge and his- 
administrators to perform his contract, but 
proved the title of Short good, and brought 
out and exhibited the first deed made to my 



[ 30 ] 



clients, and also proved that every inch of 
the land was taken by possession, where the 
claim was contested. It turned out as I ex- 
pected, for before the case was -again called 
up, Cabell Breckinridge, with the frankness 
of a gentleman, called on me, and declared 
that he had been utterly deceived in the na- 
ture of the controversy, that .both he and his 
counsel were satisfied that he had no earthly 
chance to disturb either Brown's or Howard's 
possession, and that what I offered him was 
all he ought to ask, and more than he might 
get — and that even if he could get more, he 
should be unwilling to disturb the possessions 
of his relations, and concluded by asking 
me if I would still allow him the one half 
of the 3,300 acres. I replied, that he had, 
I knew, been badly advised from the first, 
and had run himself and myself to considera- 
ble cost, but like him, I deprecated family 
controversy, and would still cheerfully settle 
it as proposed, and when the cause was 
called, we prepared a decree, dividing the 
land outside of Howard and Brown. Cab- 
ell shortly afterwards died, when Judas Is- 
cariot -presented himself both as an heir and 
agent, and requestad me to give him an ex- 
planation of the case. I did so, and con- 
cluded by saying: 

'•Now, sir, if you prefer, we will set aside 
the interlocutory decree, and let the court 
deeide." 

To this he replied: "I shall be very clear 
of that;" and requested me to agree on com- 
missioners to dividethe land between us. I 
told him he might name any one he pleased, 
in its vicinity. He professed to know no one 
but Capt. Jack Prior" and Doctor Young, 
and proposed them. I told him they would 
■do; and the gentleman shortly afterwaids 
w T ent upon the land with the commissioners, 
and had it divided in my absence, and as 
I was afterwards informed, immediately made 
sale of his part, got the money, went to 
Louisville, and there, and at Frankfort, gam- 
bled off every dollar of it; and about nine 
.years afterwards the gentleman charged his 
brother with acting without authority, and 
would, if he could, have disavowed his acts. 

This is not all that this gentleman has at- 
tempted to blast the reputation of his broth- 
er, and to hold him up to the world as in- 
solvent, unworthy of confidence, and guilty 
of making pretences of authority, to sell his 
father's land, without such authority. 



To raise funds to educate John and Wil- 
liam, and withdraw Judas from the East, 
as well as for other demands upon him from 
the whole family, Cabell was compelled to 
make sales, and that during times of the 
greatest pressure and distress for money, of 
parts of his father's land, and no doubt at 
very low prices. 

Among his sales, he seems to have sold to 
two plain men, each a tract of land, out of 
a large body of land his father owned on 
Harrod's Creek, in the county of Oldham. 
These men, I am told, after having paid for, 
improved, and lived on their lands for near- 
ly or quite twenty years, have been driven to 
suits, to obtain titles for their lands, and from 
a letter written rne, from one of their coun- 
sel, are in danger of losing their land and 
labor; Judas, in his answer, requiring them 
to show the authority of Cabell to sell the 
lands he undertook to sell the complainants. 
Suppose the gentleman had succeeded with 
myself, according to his threat, in disavow- 
ing his brother's acts. And again — suppose 
he shall, on his disavowal, as it regards the 
heirs of poor Willhoyt, whose father paid 
Cabell the full price for the land, and shall 
also snatch from Barrackman, the other com- 
plainant, in old age, his labor for twenty 
years, upon the ground that his brother had 
sold to Willhoyt and Barrackman, and re- 
ceived the money, pretending to be authoris- 
ed to sell when he was not. 

What a stain does he not fix upon his 
brothers charatcer! What a crime does he 
not commit against his brother's name and 
children, in suppressing from these poor men 
his brother's authority as he does. 

At the time he threatened me with vaca- 
ting the acts of his brother, I had sold and 
transfered 'to others, for a small price, the 
land, and they had, by their labor, greatly 
enhanced its value. If I had been dead, 
does any man believe, that a man that would 
threaten to brand a dead brother with selling 
land without authority, would have stopped 
short of an attempt to seize upon the labor 
and enhanced value which the poor men I 
had sold to, had placed upon the land. A 
wretch who would thus expose a dead broth- 
er's character; who would, by a paltry quib- 
ble, take from poor men, and poor men's 
heirs, their all. is a pretty creature to talk of 
me, as a lawyer, turning the occupants of the 
country out of possession, I never turned 



[ 31 J 



one out, nor tried to turn one out, to whom 
my brother sold in my name. I have a dead 
brother; I have never threatened, I have never 
tried to mark his coffin with the charge that 
he sold my land without authority, and was 
thereby guilty of swindling. 

The wretch asks me if I can dare meet 
his father's face in eternity. Can he meet 
his brother's? 

I have named these wrongs which the 
reverend gentleman has done his brother's 
memory, because they stand disconnected 
with all his brother's representatives. 

Were 1 to proceed, I might tell a tale 
about this same Judas's conduct towards 
that brother's memory, at. which angel's 
might tceep. I will forbear, but here take 
occasion to declare, that the statement of the 
creature, that I have ever created enmity be- 
tween him and a part of his family, or ever 
desired to do so; that I have ever, in any way, 
even encouraged or desired suits to be 
brought against him, are wholly untrue. He 
has, 1 admit, to provoke me to say what I 
know of his conduct, relative to a part of 
his family, charged me with exciting their 
hatred towards him. knowing he states false- 
ly. This, for the present. If I am com- 
pelled to notice the being's further libels on 
me, I may not fail to do myself justice, by 
exhibiting the gentleman's whole conduct 
in relation to the breach between him and a 
part of his father's family, if ever I am pro- 
voked to do so. Few that knew Cabell 
Breckinridge and his unnatural brother, and 
who value honor more than life, would not 
prefer to be the dead rather than the living 
brother, 

I have referred to two cases for the present 
— the one resting on the answer of the mis- 
creant, and the other on his letter. His 
letter proving the one, and the record the 
other, on him, are subject to any who desire 
to see them. The fellow knew that if he 
dare carry his threat into execution, as to 
myself, that I would force him to perjure 
himself, or produce his brother's authority, 
and therefore let me alone. But the poor ig- 
norant men, whose all he has invaded, con- 
fiding in the honor of his brother, paid their 
money to the brother, and that brother paid 
with it the debts of Judas — but no sooner 
does that brother die, than all his accounts 
and vouchers of every kind fall into the hands 
of Judas, who shuts up the accounts and 



charges against himself, and suppresses th© 
power if one exists, and when sued by these 
poor and illiterate men for titles, says: 'Show 
my brother's authority to sell the land.' 
Holding down upon his brother's papers, he 
declares that he died insolvent, and to this day 
scarcely any of his debts are paid, although 
I verily believe that Cabell Breckinridge 
died worth forty thousand dollars over every 
debt he owed upon earth. 

Having settled with the gentleman ac- 
counts about his father's and brother's memo- 
ries, I will now bring before the reader, the 
suppressed bond. After catching Judas al- 
most in the manor, as the lawyers call it, 
he has, with the adroitness of an arch-felon, 
charged the smuggling of his bond into his 
case upon myself. Judas had charged me 
in his Court house speech, with wasting time, 
in bring a bill in chancery to foreclose a 
mortgage on Walter Beall's administrators 
and devisees, and against George Nicholas's 
administrators and heirs, and the administra- 
tors and heirs of Joseph Hamilton Daviess, 
to recover from them, or some of them, so 
much as J. Breckinridge's administrators 
had paid for Beall and Nicholas, to the ex- 
ecutors of John Lee, when the administra- 
tors of his father had a plain and adequate 
remedy at law. To this I replied, that I had 
not only done the best 1 could, but all I 
could do. That I could never get hold of 
the bond of G. Nicholas and Walter Beall, 
covenanting to pay the debts for Breckinridge 
to John Lee and others, who had sold Breck- 
inridge lands within the Iron Works Com- 
pany bounds, nor could I get sight of the 
articles of partnery, to show w T hat was 
really Col. Nicholas's liability as to Bmckin- 
ridge's patent in the purchase from Lee, of 
the ten thousand acres of land on Slate. 
That these papers were suppressed and with- 
held from me, so that no action at law could 
be brought on them — that the said Robert 
J. had found the obligation of Beall and 
Nicholas to his father, among his father's or 
brother Cabell's papers, w T hich, as I believed, 
he suppressed, and that he knew I knew his 
reasons for doing so. 

It is all important that the reader shall 
have a fair view of the evidence that I shall 
bring up to convict Mr. Breckinridge with 
deliberate and wilful falsehoods, that he shall 
recollect that this statement or charge was 
made in the face and teeth of the gentleman, 



[ 32 ] 



at the Court house in Lexington, within 
twenty steps of the Clerk's office of the Cir- 
cuit Court, on the second Monday of Octo- 
ber, 1840, and also in the presence and hear- 
ing of thousands that were listening to what 
I said. If the charges were not true, and the 
bond, as Mr. Breckinridge impudently as- 
serts, was deposited by me wi'th the mortgage 
in the Clerk's office, in 1811, and so known 
to be by him — why, I ask, did not the. gen- 
tleman step into the Clerk's office and bring 
the bond, and show that my statements about 
its suppression were untrue? Will any man 
believe that the bond was, in point of fact, 
in the Clerk's office, and known to be there 
by Breckinridge; and still, that he let me 
charge him with suppressing the bond with- 
out denial— the more especially, when I 
continued to speak throughout the whole day, 
and part of the next, when he could, by 
simply calling for, and producing the bond, 
have proved me a slanderer? But differently 
did the gentleman himself think; he thought 
he had me securely in his power, if he de- 
nied the existence of the bond, and this he 
does, in pursuance of brother John's advice, 
most stoutly. In his libel, purporting to be 
-a reply to my speech, he consumes three or 
four pages to myself, and makes pretences, 
that he can't understand what I mean by a 
bond given by George Gicholas and Walter 
Beall to John Breckinridge, to indemnify 
him for debts due by him, to persons of 
whom he bought lands, but had not paid for 
them, lying within ihe Iron Works Compa- 
ny bounds. He throws together sentences 
out of a letter I wrote to William Breckin- 
ridge, in which I speak of Breckinridge and 
Nicholas's bond to John Lee. Here, he says, 
"you call it a bond," and then he pretends 
to quote from my letter, in which I refer to 
a declaration of trust, signed by Nicholas 
and Breckinridge, in which they declare how 
they hold land in partnership, or bought 
jointly; that is, that' Nicholas owned two- 
thirds, and Breckinridge one-third only. — - 
"Here," exclaims Judas, "is another ver- 
sion!" Now, reader, w T ould you believe that 
the cunning Judas was feigning all this diffi- 
culty about understanding that these bonds 
are not one bond? I tell William that the 
article between Nicholas and Breckinridge 
is necessary to show that Nicholas was to 
pay two thirds of the price of Lee's land, 
and his father one third, and that I cannot 



find it, but that it must be found. 1 tell 
Robert the same thing, and that he, as I be- 
lieved, had it in 1826-7. This Judas de- 
nies, and bursts forth as followeth: 

"Now, I demand of you, as a man long skill- 
ed in all the tricks that bring disrepute on the 
noble science o'f the law, to assign one tolerable 
reason, in this whole transaction, why there 
ever could have been such a bond as you say' 
you know existed." 

Here is a most explicit denial of the ob- 
ligation or bond, binding Nicholas to pay 
two-thirds and Breckinridge one. third of 
Lee's, or other partnership land debts. 

After a little more mystification on the 
same leaf — in the 78th and 79th pages of 
his second libel, the reverend gentleman 
proceeds to say: 

"If Breckinridge really sold nothing to Nich- 
olas, as Beall's mortgage and oath seem to 
prove, why should Nicholas and Beall execute 
to Breckinridge a joint bond to secure him a- 
gainst Blackwell? Pray sir, what would be the 
consideration of any bond under such circum- 
stanees, executed by Nicholas to Breckinridge — > 
especially! how could it be a joint bond of 
Nicholas and Beall to Breckinridge?" 

After nearly a third of his page is consum- 
ed to prove the absurdity of my statement, of 
the existence of the joint obligation of Beall 
and Nicholas to Breckinridge, Judas ex* 
claims; 

"In other words, is it not perfectly clear, from 
the mere statement of the case, that neither Beall 
nor Nicholas could have executed such a bond, in 
other words, that no such bond ever existed. The 
liability of Nicholas and Breckinridge, paid by 
the latter, was that of a partner. That of 
Beall's was that of a mortgager, and the quan- 
tum of these liabilities, was matter of contract 5 
of record or of law, and all you say about a 
joint bond is pure pretence." 

Here are full, explicit, and impudent de- 
nials of the existence of the articles of part- 
nership, or declaration of trust, between 
Nicholas and Breckinridge, which I tell 
Judas in my letter of August, 1832, he had, 
and insinuate that I believe he still had. — * 
[See his libel for extract from this letter. 

It is the same bond I tell William Breck- 
inridge must be produced, in my letters of 
the 6th and 18th of June, 1832, At the 
Court house, I also tell him, he suppressed 
the obligation of Nicholas and Beall to 
Breckinridge, to indemnify him, Breckin- 
ridge, against the Iron Works Company 
debts, and to satisfy the persons unpaid, all 
sums due from Breckinridge, bearing date 
the 1st day of March, 1798. Fox copies o^ 



Doth these bunds. See pages 43d, 44th, 
45tli and 46th of my reply. After these de- 
nials of the existence of these bonds, or ei- 
ther of them, in the most open and offensive 
manner, and the imputed falsehoods charged 
against me, for saying that either of them 
ever existed, it behooved me, of course, if 
I could do so, to find some evidence of them. 
One, the partnership bond, I knew I had 
seen, and as to the other, I knew that I had 
once seen a copy of a mortgage that referred 
to a bond of Nicholas and Beall to Breekin- 
iidge, bearing date in 1798. But where the 
copy was, or from what office it came. I 
could not recollect, but supposed it was like- 
ly, either to be recorded in the late Lexing- 
ton District Court, or the County Court or 
Circuit Court of Fayette, and with the aid of 
the clerk, Mr. Rhodes, searched in vain, the 
books of these offices. 

And as the deed might, by law, be record- 
ed in the Nelson Circuit or County Court 
Clerk's office, or the Bardstown District, 
Court office, or in the Clerk's office of the 
General Court, or that of the Court of Ap- 
peals, or in the Clerk's office of the County 
Court, or that of the Circuit of the County of 
Clarke, or in the offices of the Counties of 
Bath and Montgomery, I was wholly at a loss 
where to make further search, until it occur- 
red to me, that I had filed the copy of the 
mortgage of 1802, from Walter Beall to 
John Breckinridge, with a bill I filed in the 
Fayette Circuit Court, in the year 1811. I 
of course made search in that suit, and in- 
stead of finding the copy I was looking for, 
I found the original mortgage, with the ori- 
ginal bond, most snUgly folded up and wa- 
fered to the inside of the mortgage. About 
the same time, I found another copy of the 
mortgage, Which has disappeared, which, I 
presume, was the copy I had in 1811, but 
Judas has undeceived me by his ignorance or 
inadvertence, and proven himself to be a 
most base and unprincipled creature. 

On page 12th, of his libel last punished, 
he says: 

"I have before me a considerable bundle, re- 
lating to the contract, and two mortgages from 
Walter Beall to my father. The whole of them 
appear to have been once in your possession, as 
a number of them are endorsed in your hand- 
writing, and my supposition is, that one of the 
•administrators of my father, perhaps Mr. Harri- 
son, placed them in your hands about the year 
1811, when you instituted proceedings on one of 
the mortgages mentioned above, and that my 



brother, J. C. Breckinridge, withdrew them* 
Home time between 181 1, (when he became trus*- 
tee of the estate of my father,) and 1&23, when 
he departed this life." 

It would be perfectly easy to prove from 
these papers, all about this suppressed bond, 
&c. Now, mark this fellow well, at this 
page. Before he had fully matured a system 
of falsehoods, relative to the filing of this 
mortgage, and the suppressed bond, he says 
that he has the two mortgages, or official co- 
pies — the one of course of 1801, and one of 
1802, from W. Beall to John Breckinridge, 
and from my endorsements on them or other 
marks, 1 must have had them as early as 
1811, when they were put in my hands by 
Robert Harrison, as he presumes, when I 
filed a bill on one of them — that is the 
mortgage of 1802 — for in that year I did file 
the bill on that mortgage, and that mortgage 
it was, that referred to the bond. He further 
states, that his brother Cabell withdrew this 
mortgage,, between 1814, and 1823. True, 
Judas, true, every word; you guess right; and 
were 1 as bad as you are, I would exclaim— 
Oh. the mysteries of Providence! How my 
God has at last made the liar utter truth! — 
But, Oh no! sinful as I am, I am not impious 
enough to say or believe that God has made 
you speak one truth, that you may stand 
the convicted slanderer and falsifier, exposed 
to his just indignation now, and to his retrib- 
utive justice hereafter! Reader, do not fail to 
remember that he, Judas, says that his fa- 
ther's administrator gave me the copy of the 
mortgage, and on that mortgage, that is, on 
that copy, I filed the bill against Beall, Lee, 
0 wings and others. To this copy, he does 
not pretend a copy of the bond of 1798, 
was stuck with or without wafers, or that he 
found any copy of the bond among the pa- 
pers he says 1 once had; but he says he has 
the copy given me by Harrison to commence 
suit on. 

Surely the gentleman will now ask for- 
giveness, if he dare do so, of his God, if not 
of the world, for the falsehoods and decep- 
tions he has attempted to play oft upon the 
world, at my expense, about the original 
mortgage, and the bond that was safely and 
newly wafered, and folded up in the original 
mortgage itself, being filed in the Clerk's of- 
fice, with my bill, in 1811. Oh no, Judas, 
it cannot be that I filed the bill on a copy, 
and that copy remained with the Clerk, from 
1811 until after 1814, when it was w'th- 



t 34 ] 



drawn from the office by your Brother, to be 
used, no doubt, on the trial of Lee's Execu- 
tors, against his father's administrators, and 
that I still filed the original mortgage, or had 
it to file, in the same suit in 1811. An offi- 
cial copy was all I had, and all the law re. 
quired to be filled. The reader will no 
doubt be astonished at the impudence of Mr. 
Breckinridge in now declaring that he knew 
where the bond was — that I knew where it 
was. That it was matter of public record, 
and every one was bound to know where it 
was; always, as he does, keeping out of view 
the article between Nicholas and Breckin- 
ridge, which I also charged him with sup- 
pressing, when he recurs to his positive deni- 
als, not only written but published, that such 
papers ever existed, made as late as. 1842.— 
In his third libel, he takes care to omit his 
positive denial, published in 1842, of the 
existence of both bonds, but states that my 
charge, that he hed found the bond of Nicholas 
and Beall, among his father's papers, or those 
of his brother, which I stated I believed he 
suppressed, is false, and even denies not only 
the suppression of those papers, but their ex- 
istence. He is not only guilty of falsely so 
denying, when he had one of them closely 
and snugly under lock and key? but when he 
had slipt the other into the suit of himself 
and Beall, and others, in which he had tried 
to recover without the bond, and failed; 
and which he was told, he could not recover 
anything on, but must pay the cost or file the 
bond, which bond I by accident found, where 
he thought he bad hid it, and then obtained 
from his lawyer an admission that Judas had 
confessed to him that he had the other bond 
also. These bonds I published with the de- 
nial of Judas, and the manner in which I had 
become possessed of them, and thus con- 
victed him of wilful falsehood. But the 
production of the papers from the gentle- 
man'ssuit, where be had slipt one unobserved, 
and the other filed with an amended bill by 
his lawyer, to whom he had given it, seemed 
only to stagger the gentleman's impudence, 
and to prostrate his inventive genius a short 
time, for as he writes he gains confidence. — 
In the 12th page of his libel, it had not oc- 
curred to him, to even deny that he had put 
the bond in the Clerk's office, much less to 
charge that I had placed it there. In the be- 
ginning of his tirade, he seems to quibble on 
the identity of the paper, and still to say, it 



is not the bond he denied existed, but anofri' 
er; that as the bond he denied, never did exist;' 
therefore, he never suppressed it. On the 
12th page, he confesses, as I have before 
shown, that he has now the very copy on 
which I filed the bill, withdrawn from the 
suit by his brother Cabell. 

It was a recollection of this copy, which I 
knew referred to the bond of 1798, that led 
me to search for it in the suit the gentleman 
now admits I filed it in, but it was gone, and 
the original mortgage, with the bond folded 
in its inside, and carefully wafered to it, was 
in the place of the copy. Who put them 
there? I know I did not, and that I never 
had seen nor expected to see the original 
bond, unless I forced it from the gentleman 
by a bill of Discovery, which I intended fi- 
nally to resort to. Some one must have 
slipt it into the suit, and I have on my mind 
no doubt earthly, that it was put there by Ju- 
das Breckinridge himself. The charge of a 
'man's suppressing his own paper, or not fil- 
ing of it, is certainly no great affair. Mr. 
Breckinridge, as the owner, had a right to* 
suppress it, until ordered by the Court to pro- 
duce it. 

He had charged me with suing Col. Nich- 
olas, administrator, &c, in chancery, instead 
of the direct remedy at law. I retorted — 
"you suppressed the bond, and I was com- 
pelled to go into chancery." To this, Mr. 
•Breckinridge does not stop at a denial, that he 
suppressed the papers, but he denies that the 
papers ever existed. Here I charge Mr. 
Breckinridge with falsehood, in my reply of 
1842, in which I publish copies of both 
bonds, taken from the Clerk's office, where 
I believe he filed one some time in the year 
1840, and he and his lawyer filed the oth- 
er in 1842. Of the existence of the bonds, 
I always spoke confidently, especially in 
1840, when I referred to them in my speech, 
stating that I believed they were suppressed, 
&c. I will explain to the reader how it is 
utterly impossible that Mr. Breckinridge can 
escape from the proof I have given. Ob- 
serve that he himself, in a very unintelligi- 
ble form, told some truths, as to the history 
of my connexion with his father's business, 
but so covered them over with his abuse apd 
falsehoods, that the reader is detered from 
even an attempt at understanding Mr. Breck- 
inridge's position, or my own, in the busi- 
ness. As I have stated, the suit of Lee's 



[ 35 j 



executors and Breckinridge was the first, and 
perhaps the only one 1 meddled with for sev- 
eral years, in which Breckinridge's adminis- 
trators were interested. 

In this I was employed by Grayson, one 
of the administrators, who shortly became 
incompetent, and died from drunkenness. — 
The other administrator, Mr. Harrison, 
though a plain, honest man, became, about 
this time, very intemperate; so much so, that 
when 1 saw him, from that cause, and his un- 
fitness otherwise to manage the estate, I de- 
rived no aid earthly from him. To Mrs. 
Breckinridge, the other administrator, I nev- 
er spoke but once, as I believe, on the sub- 
ject of the business, and that only to inform 
her, that 1 had come to hunt for papers, to 
explain or defend the case -of Wood, and 
search for any receipt or voucher, against 
Lee's claim, that might exist, i found 
Wood's papers, but could find nothing rela- 
tive to Lee's claim. These, I think, were 
the only suits I had at that time for the es- 
tate. As I have stated in my speech, I 
found Mr. Breckinridge's papers in good or- 
der, and well labelled, except a large pile, 
lying loose in the top of a desk. These, I 
think, I did not look into: perhaps Mr. Har- 
rison might have done so, but I believe that 
neither of us made any search among them, 
as they were very numerous and loose, and I 
was pressed for time. At the time, and ever 
since, until within a few weeks, I had no 
^doubt that the loose papers were papers 
which Alfred Grayson had taken out of the 
paper-press in bundles, and untied them, and 
then carelessly threw them into the condition 
I found them. But I have latterly been 
told, and that by a daughter of Mrs. Mere- 
dith, that the loose papers were some that her 
uncle had not assorted before his death, and 
that they were removed from where he left 
them, and placed where I saw them by his 
■daughter, Mrs. Grayson, — at least, -so her 
mother informed her. This information sat- 
isfies me that Mr. Breckinridge was engaged 
in filing away his papers when he was taken 
sick, as all the labels on the papers appear- 
ed new — neatly and recently put on; — and 
another fact also induces a belief, that both 
BealPs original mortgage and the bond, 
were not labelled, but among the loose papers; 
is that, but a few months before his death, he 
appears to have withdrawn one or both of 
of them from the office of the Clerk of the 



Federal Court. Hence 1 conclude, that it so 
happened that neither myself nor Cabell 
Breckinridge ever laid hands on the original 
mortgage, and the bond of W. Bcall and 
George Nicholas, which were afterwards 
found by Robert Breckinridge, and for rea- 
sons I have given, and will give, he sup- 
pressed or withheld them from me. 

During the contest between Beall and 
Ormsby, against Breckinridge's administra- 
tors, I recollect I was very anxious to get 
hold of the original bond, and urged Cabell 
Breckinridge to search for it, as well as the 
article of partnership between his father and 
Beall. He told me that he had done so, and 
could find nothing of the original mortgage 
or bond, but that he had found a paper that 
would prove his father was only liable to 
Lee for one third of the purchase money, for 
the ten thousand acres of land, bought by 
Nicholas and him. After this search, we 
both concluded that Grayson had taken pos- 
session Of the bond, and, owing to his drunk- 
enness and general carelessness, had lost or 
mislaid it, and no father efforts were made 
by me to find the bond, until 1826 or 1827. 
After Lee's Executors obtained judgment 
against Breckinridge's administrators, finally, 
in the Court of Appeals, I directed Judas, 
this son of the church and pious preacher, 
to take charge of the suit I had brought in 
1811, against Nicholas :and others, and to 
amend the bill, by introducing a charge that 
judgment was obtained, <&c, against his fa- 
ther's administrator — telling him that the ori- 
ginal bond could -not be found, and that his 
brother Cabell and myself had concluded it 
was lost or mislaid by Grayson — or I would 
advise a suiUat law, in preference to a bill in 
chancery, that would be more tedious in its 
preparation. At a subsequent period not very 
long, the gentleman accosted me, saying, 
"You and Cabell could not find the original 
bond to my father, from Beall and Nicholas?' 
{ answered no. "Well," says he, "I have 
found it." "Perhaps," said I, "it is the ar- 
ticles of partnery which you have found, 
which your brother told me he had found?" 
"No, v replied he, "I have found them both. 
One binds Nicholas to pay two thirds, and 
the other binds him to pay the whole." — 
"Very good," said I, "I shall be pleased to 
see them." 

In the year 1827, the gentleman called ora 
me to draw the proposed amendment, stating 



[ 36 ] 



that himself and Mr. Hunt, his partner, 
were at a loss to understand my views; and 
to the best of my recollection, brought with 
him the copy of the articles of partnership, 
showing Nicholas's liability to pay two thirds 
of Lee's debt. J drafted the amendment at 
my office, which I handed to the gentleman, 
and which, it appears, he filed, retaining the 
article of partnership, but obtained an or- 
der of survey, &c. Either at this interview, 
or shortly after it, I asked Mr. Breckinridge 
to let me see the original bond, which he had 
informed me he had found, of Nicholas and 
Beall, when he answered, that he could not 
do so, for he had lost or mislaid it. His 
careless manner, in stating he had lost or 
mislaid so important a paper, and his after- 
wards denying its existence, induced me to 
suspect that he had the bonds, but for mo- 
tives, which I then ascribed to him, intended 
to suppress them. That he knew of the ex- 
istence of the bond, or where it was, in 1842, 
when he published his second libel, denying 
the existence of either of the bonds, is most 
evident. Please to recollect, Mr. Breckin- 
ridge does not, in his third libel, deny that he 
knew where it was, but says the bond was 
matter of record, known to him, known to 
me, and had been for years, public, and the 
subject of controversy— that / knew such 
bond must have existed, I have repeatedly 
declared, but that I could never lay hands on 
it, or get a sight of it — that I knew, from the 
recitals in the copies of the mortgage, that 
such bond was executed on the first of March. 
1798, I have always stated; for the bond, 
with its date, is referred to by the mortgage of 
1802; and all the covenants favorable to 
Breckinridge, are recited in it; but the mort- 
gage recites none of the covenants favorable 
to Beall. I wished to know whether the 
bond contained what Beall charged it did 
contain, as well as to be able to decide on 
the propriety of bringing an action of cove- 
nant against Nicholas's administrators and 
heirs, and so, more than once, stated to the 
Reverend gentleman, but never was favored 
with a sight of the bond. 

That Mr. Breckinridge is guilty of gross 
trickery, in his explanation of his conduct, 
in withholding the bond upon the credulity of 
the ignorant, must be apparent to every man 
acquainted with our registry acts. He says 
that the bond could not be suppressed, be- 
cause it was of public record. He resorted 



to this trick, to cheat and deceive his brother 
preachers and church, whom he believes do 
not know that such a thing as recording a 
bond, is not known to our law, and not only 
not notice, but unauthorized. It is a mere 
extra official act of the clerk-, for which a 
clerk has no authority, and if he charge for 
it, is finable, and ought to be punished. — 
Who would ever think of searching the pub- 
lic records for a bond? And, if found, a 
copy from the record is evidence for no earth- 
ly purpose, This every sensible man knows; 
besides, thebond appears to have been record- 
ed, without even the proof of Telfair, the only 
subscribing witness, and more than four years 
after it was executed. I wished the bond to 
sue on. This I could only do on the original 
bond. This defence of Judas, ought to sat- 
isfy every member of the bar, of Judas's cor- 
ruption. If his motives were honest — if 
truth were not intended to be concealed, why 
make false pretences about this recording of 
the bond? Guilt, my fellow citizens, guilt 
drove him to it. 

I will now show that as late as 1825, both 
Mr. Breckinridge and myself were ignorant 
where the bond was — to do which, I will 
trouble the reader to read the following ex- 
tracts from Ormsby's bill, and the answer of 
the heirs of John Breckinridge, to which 
Robert Judas Breckinridge made oath: 

KENTUCKY, SCT. 

COURT OF APPEALS OFFICE. 

Breckinridge's heirs, ) 

vs. S- An appeal. 

Ormsbv. > 
(From the Jefferson Circuit Court.) 
Extract of Ormsby's bill, to-wit: 

"Your orator states, as he is informed, and 
believes, that on the 1st March, in the year 1798, 
the said Walter Beall and George Nicholas, con- 
tracted with the said John Breckinridge, for the 
purchase of his interest in the iron works, on 
Slate Creek, lands, &c., at, and for the sum of 
five theusand six hundred pounds; five thousand 
pounds thereof, to be paid by a tract of one 
thousand acres, claimed by said Beall, on Bear- 
grass, and the remaining six hundred pounds, by 
a tract of six hundred acres, claimed by said Be- 
all, on the Kentucky River, about two miles be- 
low the mouth of Drenning's Lick; and by their 
agreement of that date, under the hands and 
seals of said Breckinridge, Beall and Nicholas, 
it was, and is expressly provided, that the said 
Beall should not, in any manner, be answerable 
for the titles ol the said tracts, or either of them. 
The tract of 1,000 acres, on Beargrass, has been, 
ever since, in the uninterrupted possession and 



r 3- j 



enjoyment of the said John Breckinridge and 
his heirs. The tract of GOO acres, on the Ken- 
tucky River, was entered the 29th April, 1780, 
in the name of Samuel Beall, who, on the 25th 
January, 1785, for value received, assigned the 
same, to the said Walter. The said entry waa 
made, the 8th November, 1792, and on the 13th 
November, 1798, by virtue of an assignment of 
the plat, and certificate of survey — a patent is- 
sued therefor, lo the said Breckinridge, on the 
same 25th January, 1785. The sair. Samuel 
Beall executed his writing of that date, to the 
said Walter Beall, providing that if there should 
be any deficiency of vacant land, in the above 
mentioned location, he would supply it by anoth- 
er location, or lands of equal quality or value; 
and which said writing, the said Walter Beall, 
on the 30th August, in the year 1799, assigned 
to said John Breckinridge, in pursuance ox his 
agreement of the first March, 1798, aforesaid. — 
That aiterwaids, to-wit: on or about the 23rd of 
April, in the year 1801, the said John Breckin- 
ridge went to the house of said Beall, in Bards- 
town, where he was confined by mental derange- 
ment, and represented that the said 600 acre en- 
try, was surveyed contrary to location, and 
threatened him, if he did not execute a mort- 
gage to secure the said Breckinridge, in the pay- 
ment of £1000, in land of good quality and ti- 
tle, on account thereof, he would immediately 
commence suit against him; and the said Beall, 
not having in his possession, at the time, the 
agreement aforesaid, of the 1st March, 1798, the 
same being then in the possession of the Execu- 
tors of the said George Nicholas, in Lexington, 
and from his infirmity of mind, not being able to 
recollect its covenants, or the stipulations there- 
in, that he wa3 not in any manner to be answer- 
able for the title to said 600 acres of land; and 
being at the time unnaturally, and unreasona- 
bly subject to alarm from the slightest cause; 
in fine, being non-compos mentis in law," &c. 
Further extracts from the record: 
li At a court, continued and held for the Jeffer- 
son Circuit, at the Courthouse aforesaid, on the 
seventh day of June, one thousand eight hun- 
dred and twenty-six, came the defendants,. Pe- 
ter B. Porter and Letitia, his wife, John Breck- 
inridge, Robert J. Breckinridge, David Castle- 
man, William L. Breckinridge, and Mary C. 
Breckinridge, by their counsel, and filed their 
joint demurrer and answer to complainants bill 
in this cause. But the filing of the said demur- 
rer and answer at this time, shall not delay the 
trial of this cause, at this term, unless upon 
good cause shown — which joint demurrer and 
answer, are in the words and figures following, 
to-wit: — The demurrer and answer of Peter B. 
Porter, and Letitia P. Porter, his wife, John 
Breckinridge, Robert J. Breckinridge, David 
Castleman, William L. Breckinridge, and Mary. 
C. Breckinridge, to a bill in chancery, in the 
Jefferson Circuit Court, by Peter B. Ormsby — 
these Defendants, saving, &c, come, &c, and 
not admitting the truth of the allegations, or 
any of them, contained in the bill of the com- 
plainant, but, by way of protestation, denying 
the same, say, that as to all of said bill, and 
every part thereof, as make these Defendants 



parties, or as seek a decree, as to them, touching 
the matter in controversy, they demurrer a tic} 
plead, that the said bill, and the matters and 
things therein contained, so far as itiey are 
sued, or made parties, are wholy insufficient, 
and want form and substance; nor are they in 
any wise bound to make answer, or plead there- 
to; and this they will verify, Sic. , and pray their 
costs, &c. — and for answer, as to all such parts 
of the said bill, as seeks relief to the complain- 
ant, by reason of any hardship suffered, or to- 
be suffered by him, from the acts of their co-de- 
fendants, or others, which may or do in any 
wise effect these defendants — they, answering, 
say, that the}' admit it to be true, that the ad- 
ministrators of John Breckinridge, obtained such 
decree, and effected a sale under it; that' the 
complainant became the purchaser, and execu 
ted his note, or bond, for the purchase money; 
that he failed to pay agreeably to his bond — was 
sued; judgment obtained; and that he, having 
conveyed his property to his brother Stephen, 
the administrators levied the execution, or caus- 
ed it to be levied upon, the property being so 
conveyed, and that Stephen Ormsby became 
the purchaser, &c. But these defendants do not 
admit that there was either wrong or oppression 
practiced towards the complainants. On the 
contrary, they believe that he acted with his. 
eyes open, and on full advice, in making the* 
purchase; and after waiting and delaying as 
long as law will admit, is now, in this way, en- 
deavoring further to vex and harrass the admia- 
istrators, in the collection of the demand; for 
these defendants are advised, and verily believe, 
that Stephen bought the property in trust, for 
the complainant, and that this bill is only a sub- 
terfuge to still further delay payment. 

"They know nothing of the complainant's 
holding a deed; and if he took one, it was at his 
own hazard, as he knew, ©r might have known, 
that the lot was mortgaged, and the mortgage 
duly recorded, long before his pretended pur- 
chase. These defendants deny that the mort- 
gage of their ancestor, was unfairly obtained, or 
that Beall was either insane or deceived, in ma- 
king it; on the contrary, they aver that it was 
made, as they verily believe ana charge, upon a 
full and fair consideration. These defendants 
refer to the answer of their co-defendants, the 
administrators, and so far as it applies, adopt it 
as their answer. They plead and insist upon 
the proceedings and decree, in the suit in chan- 
cery referred to, and the proceedings had there- 
on, in bar, to any relief in this suit, and deny- 
ing fraud, pray their costs," &c. 

R. WICKLIFFE. 

STATE OF KENTUCKY, ) 
Franklin County Court. > 

This day, Robert J. Breckinridge, one o f the 
within named defendants, made oath before the 
undersigned, a Justice of the Peace, for said 
county, that what is stated in the within answer 
from his own knowledge, is true, and what is 
stated from the information of others, he be- 
lieves to be true. Given under my hand, this 
8th day of December, 1825. 

L. SANDERS, Jr., J. P. F. C. 



[ 38 ] 



* *It is agreed, that the oath of the above 
named R. J. Breckinridge, to this answer, shall 
give it the same effect and force as if it were 
sworn to by all the defendants named in it." 

J. U. S. GRAYSON, 
Atty for Complainants. 

December 8, 1825. 

"And at a Circuit Court, continued and held 
for the Jefferson Circuit, at the Courthouse afore- 
said, on the thirteenth day of June, one thou- 
sand eight hundred and twenty-six, on motion 
of complainant, it is ordered that Samuel S. 
Nicholas, agent of George Nicholas's represen- 
tatives, who has in his possession the agree- 
ment between George Nicholas and Walter Be- 
all, and John Breckinridge, under date of 1st 
March, 1798, file the same in this suit and 
thereupon, the said Samuel S.Nicholas filed the 
said agreement, in this suit, and leave is given 
-said complainant, to prove the execution of said 
•agreement, in the hearing of this cause. To 
■which the defendants presented and filed a bill 
■of exception^ which was signed and sealed by 
the court." 

"I certify that the foregoing extracts are tru- 
ly copied from the record in said cause." 

J. SWIGERT, C. 0. A. 

March 20, 1843, 

It appears in the bill of Ormsby, that he 
charges the execution and contents of the 
bond of 1798, and especially, that the bond 
contained a clause, that if the 600 acres 
were lost, that Walter Beall was in no event 
to be liable. In answer to these allegations, 
the defendants filed a general denial, to which 
Judas swears. Now if he knew of the bond, 
-and knew that the bill truly stated its con- 
tents, I should like to know how he dare to 
-deny its existence and its covenants on oath, 
•on the 8th day of December, 1825, before 
Lewis Sanders, a Justice of the Peace? — 
But there is something tougher yet, for the 
gentleman to digest. If he was not endeav- 
oring to suppress the paper, called a bond, 
why did he resist the rule on Samuel Nicho- 
las, his lawyer, made by the Jefferson Circuit 
'Court, and then excepted to the order, com- 
pelling its production? 

To gratify the reader on this point, I will 
trouble him with reading the above extracts 
from the recoids of the Jefferson Circuit 
Court. Surely the reader will believe Mr, 
Breckinridge incapable of denying the exis- 
tence and contents of a paper that he knew 
existed; and every one will admit, that his 
resisting the production of the bond, under 
the order of the Circuit Court of Jefferson, 
is conclusive evidence that he wished the 
"bond suppressed, and that he suppressed his 
copy of it. 



^But, again; in the year of 1527, as I have 
before stated, at the instance of Mr. Breck- 
inridge, I drew an amendment to his bill, in 
the case of himself and others, against Lee, 
Beall, &c. 

To which amended bill, Mr: Clay, as Ex- 
ecutor to James Morrison, Executor of Geo. 
Nicholas, filed the following answer, to 
which he made oath. The answer of H. 
Clay, only acting Executor of James Morri- 
son, to the original bill, and bills of revivor, 
and amendments exhibited in the Fayette 
Circuit Court, in chancery, by the represen. 
tative of John Breckinridge, dee'd., against 
those sof John Lee, dee'd.., this defendant 
and others: 

'•This defendant, saving and reserving all just 
exceptions to the said several bills, for answer 
thereto, or so much thereof, as he is advised is 
necessary for him to answer, sarth: That he ad- 
mits that such contract was entered into between 
John Lee, of the one part, and John Breckin- 
ridge and George Nicholas of. the other part, as 
is charged in the bill relative to the land claim- 
ed in the name of Blackwell ; but this defendant 
does not know or admit that the obligations of 
the said Nicholas and Breckinridge to the said 
Lee, for the payment of the consideration mo- 
ney stipulated — were in the proportion of twe 
thirds for Nicholas, and one third for Breckin- 
ridge, as charged, or that they were in any oth- 
er than equal proportions between them." 

"I, Charles S. Bodley, Deputy Clerk for Har- 
ry I. Bodley, Clerk of the Fayette Circuit Court, 
do certify, that the foregoing is a true extract 
from the answer of H. Clay, filed in the case of 
Breckinridge's administrators, &c, against Lee's 
Executor's, &c.,-onthe first day of July, 1830, 
Given under my hand, this 6th dav of March, 
1843. Attest C. S. BODLEY, D. C. 

For HARRY I. BUDLEY, Clerk. 

It will be seen by the bill, that Breckin- 
ridge states, that by one bond or contract, 
George Nicholas was to pay John Lee, two- 
thirds of the purchase money, for all land 
outside of the iron works boundary, included 
within Blackwell's or Lee's survey; and that 
Beall and Nicholas were to pay the whole 
purchase money, for all the survey that inter- 
fered with the iron works boundary. This 
is precisely what is stipulated m these bonds, 
to which Clay replies, expressly denying 
that he knew, and therefore would not ad- 
mit that the obligations between Nicholas 
and Breckinridge contained stipulations that 
Nicholas was to pay two-thirds, or that they 
were to pay in any other than equal propor- 
tions between them. It is neeessary to ob- 
serve,, that Mr. Clay files this answer, on 



t 39 ] 



oath, after, of course, reading the bill and 
papers filed; and can any man, who knows 
him, believe that the covenant or obligation 
of Beall and Nicholas was before him, when 
he penned and swore to his answer? In oth- 
er words, is it possible that a lawyer of Mr. 
Clay's capacity and character, would, with 
one or both of the bonds full in his view, have 
sworn to an answer, denying their existence? 
He, on oath, denies that Nicholas was, by 
any obligation, to pay more than one half the 
purchase money to Lee, when the article of 
partnership bound him to pay two-thirds; and 
Nicholas's and Beall's bond bound him to 
pay the whole purchase money, inside of the 
iron works' company bounds, which is stated 
by Breckinridge himself, to be between three 
and four thousand acres. How, then, is Mr. 
Clay's answer to be reconciled with his high 
character, for veracity and capacity? Sim- 
ply by the fact, that the bonds were then in 
Judas's pocket, and that he consequently 
states falsely, in saying that they were on 
file, in the suit, from 1811, when he says I 
filed them with the original bill. But what 
becomas of Judas's oath, in 1825, in which 
he denies their existence, if they were really 
and notoriously on file, in the suit of Breck- 
inridge and Beall, in 1811, until 1843, as he 
now declares they were? That Judas knows 
they were not on file from 1811 to 1843, is 
to be inferred from the cunning and adroit- 
ness, with which he refers to the bill, fil. 
ed in 1811, which he pretends refers to, and 
makes profert of the bond, when the reverse 
of this statement is true, and known to be so, 
when he penned his deceptious libel. An 
extract of the bill, as filed by me, appears on 
the twenty first page of the gentleman's third 
libel, Neither that, nor the entire bill of re- 
cord, refers to or states any thing about the 
bond; but it states the substance of the mort- 
gage, and makes the mortgage — not the bond 
— a part of the bill. Now, as the mortgage 
referred to the bond, and was conditioned, 
that Beall should in all things comply with 
the bond, does not every lawyer know, that 
if I had had the bond, that my bill would have 
been constructed first, by setting out the bond, 
and making it a part of the bill, and then, by 
setting out the mortgage, and making that al- 
so a part of the bill? Certainly. And yet 
has Mr. Breckinridge referred to my bill to 
prove that I had the mortgage and bond, and 
filed them with the bill? Mr. Breckinridge 



is a poor lawyer, and his ignorance may ex- 
cuse him; he can plead nothing else, or de- 
liberate falsehood to support him. 

Ignorant as he is, and always was, of the 
law, I believe the latter is his only refuge. — 
If every other fact were removed, proving 
that the bond was not among the papers, un- 
til it was smuggled into them since 1827, the 
bill filed by myself is conclusive, that I was 
not possessed of it, when I drew the bill. — 
Indeed, if it had not been for the villainous- 
denials of Mr. Breckinridge, of the existence 
of the bond, and his attempts to make an im- 
pression, that it was myself that filed the 
bond, I would cheerfully have allowed him 
the plea of ignorance, of the bond being on 
file, and the more readily, as I remember, 
about five or six years since, some lawyers 
were blustering about the case, who, I learn- 
ed, were set to work by his brother-in-law — 
certificate Davy. I would allow it to be- 
very possible, that Davy, mousing among 
Mr. Breckinridge's old papers, had found \t T 
and given it to the lawyer I observed doing, 
something with the suit. But Mr. Breckin- 
ridge's denial and long argument, in his se^ 
cond libel, against the existence of the bond, 
after he had, as he now confesses, as early 
as the March preceding, obtained a list of 
the papers from his nephew, Mr. John 
Breckinridge, containing in it, both the mort- 
gage and bond; also, a like list from Mr. 
Johnson, his lawyer; and after he had, with 
Mr. Johnson, went into the Clerk's office, 
and there read the papers together, reading 
and conversing about the bond and mort- 
gage, it is impossible to exonerate Mr 
Breckinridge from a deliberate deception and 
wilful falsehoods, in relation to the whole 
matter, and to believe he did not smuggle the 
papers into the record. The reader must recol- 
lect that the examination made by him and 
Johnson was while he was writinghislibel, and 
in less than thirty days before its publication. 

But even Breckinridge's own account of his 
conduct, proves it to have been base. Why 
was he so anxious to get a list of the papers 
in this case? and why employ a youth wholly 
unacquainted with the business, when he had 
just left the office himself? Again — why so 
anxious, when his nephew informs him that 
Mr. Johnson had taken a list, to see that list 
also? Why not, at once, have told your 
lawyer, Mr. Breckinridge, to give you a list? 
I will tell you, reader. Mr. Breckinridge, in 



[ 40 j 



1810, Was advised that it was impossible for 
him to get a decree, without the bond I had 
charged him with suppressing; and if he had 
given up the bond to have it filed in the usu- 
al way, it Avould confirm what I said. He 
therefore thought that he could, by hiding the 
bond in the centre of the mortgage, elude de- 
tection, and when the trial came on, would 
have the benefit of the bond. But he feared 
he had hid it too safely — so much so, that his 
lawyer might overlook it, and, therefore, he 
would try, if his nephew would overlook it. 
This he could do, without the fact being 
known to me. He made the experiment. — 
But still Mr. Johnson might overlook it, and 
he writes to John to get him a copy of John- 
son's list. Not only this, but to make assu- 
rance doubly sure, he makes Mr. Johnson 
read the bond, and he also read it. Reader, 
was there ever such anxiety about a bond and 
mortgage before? The suit had stood still for 
nearly thirty years: and has stood so yet; and 
except the period from October, when I 
charged Judas with suppressing the bond, un- 
til just before he published his second libel, 
he seems careless and indifferent about it. — 
Why such anxiety about the papers? Then 
there were but three or four, at most, exclu- 
ding bills and answers, and the suit was not 
ready for trial — nor is it belter prepared at 
this moment for trial, than it was thirty years 
ago? The fact is, poor human nature is the 
same, whenever guilt troubles it. In a long 
practice, I have often seen thieves convicted, 
w T ho were watched, after they had committed 
thefts, and caught, going frequently to look at 
the stolen plunder; and even murder has been 
detected by the great care of the murderer to 
guard himself against discovery. I am done 
with the bond and mortgage for the present, 
and I think all will now agree, that if Judas 
did not put the bond in the office, that he 
knows who did, and that he has told terrible 
untruths about it. 

A few remarks now on the third attempt 
of Judas, to impeach my professional integri- 
ty; and here has the gentleman shed a flood of 
light, where was all darkness to me before. 
Although, in 1830, my personal intercourse 
had ceased with Breckinridge, not an unkind 
word had passed between us, and my relations 
with all his family, were not only unchang- 
ed, but cordial and kind. I was not only 
conducting their suit with fairness, but with 
zeal, and should, in less than twelve months, 



have closed it, and put them in possession of 
at least $6,000, when Mr. Robert Judas, 
without my knowledge, introduced another 
lawyer into the cause; and without process 
being served on the mortgagee, and the cause* 
in other respects, being not prepared for trial, 
entered a decree against T. D. O wings, un- 
der whom my clients, Ellicott and Meredith, 
claimed, for nearly ten thousand dollars, and 
had a decree to sell the whole iron works 
property, which Owings had owned. For 
this extraordinary step, I could assign no 
earthly motive to Judas, but secret and un- 
provoked malice, and for the conduct of T. 
D. Owings, who declined defending the suit, 
and let the decree go by default. I was 
equally at a loss to even conjecture a cause, 
especially, as he was then asserting through 
his son, an adverse title and possession to the 
title of Ellicott and Meredith. But Judas's 
last libel unveils the whole mystery of the 
transactions, dark and devilish as they were; 

On page 27, of his third libel, he pub- 
lishes a letter from Benjamin Mills, an At- 
torney at Law, bearing date, the 6th of Feb- 
ruary, 1830, to himself. After referring to 
Price's judgment, that is, John Lee's Execu- 
tors judgment, and its final issue in the Ap- 
pellate Court. He tells him, (Judas,) — 

''That he presumes that he, Mr Breckinridgej 
and his family arc apprized that your father 
held a lien on an estate, amply sufficient to 
satisfy that claim, and secure its restoration to 
the family, anchthat I have no doubt, more am- 
ple than you are aw-! re; and I presume you are 
prosecuting your lien by suit, in some court, 
but where, I do not know, and uish to ascer- 
tain. WilI*you be so good a? to inform me wheth- 
er you are pursuing your rights, and in what 
court, as I have an interest in knowing, as I 
hf ve engaged, and am now engaging in suits, 
affecting tne same estate? But you may rest 
assured that no engagements which I have made, 
or am about to make, run counter to your interest, 
and will probably unite with it. Indeed, I have 
no doubt that I do possess information, touch- 
ing those claims and the estate in question, 
which may be of service to your claim, and 
which I will freely communicate to you. I 
have no doubt that your father's lien is more 
extensive than }^ou are aware of; it may be which 
is not probable, that you are not apprised of the 
full security against this claim, was held by 
your father; if not, I can communicate it to you. 
I will thank you to answer my enquiries in this 
matter, as soou as suits your convenience. I 
could more easily explain mj'self by an inter-* 
view ivith you, but do not know when I shall 
have an opportunity. 

Respectfully, R. MILLS. 

R. J. Breckj.nrtdge, Esq, 



L 41 1 



'Here, gentle reader, is the first pass be- 
tween Judas and Thos. D. 0 wing's lawyer, 
for the thirty pieces. Can you divine why 
Mr. Mills cannot explain himself in writing 
— but, to do it, must see Judas in person?— 
why there are so many maybes and contin- 
gencies, that he (Mills) can, by his engage- 
ments, serve Judas in his claim? Listen, 
and I will tell you a tale that ought to make 
the very earth, on which Judas treads, curse 
him. It was my misfortune to be the lawyer 
and friend both, of Jno. Breckinridge's family. 
I had long served them with a devotion and 
success, that is without a parallel in the an- 
nals of my profession, and had never been 
■compensated to the tenth part of the value of 
my labor, and was, at the moment this over- 
ture was made to this vile betrayer of my 
peace and honor, as faithfully and zealously 
conducting the suit in chancery, of Breckin- 
ridge and Lee, to its final issue, as I had 
transacted a weight of business for the es- 
tate, that had hung upon my hands twenty 
years, a statement of which will be found in 
my reply to Judas's second libel, in pages 
39 and 40. And yet, until he published this 
letter, was I kept wholly ignorant. I 
knew I had been betrayed — villainously 
betrayed by him, but I ascribed it to the vile- 
ness of his fiendish temper; little thinking 
that, like his great exemplar, his treachery 
to me was won by filthy lucre. 

Judas "has given the overture; why has he 
kept back the answer? and why has he kept 
back the name of the go-between him and 
Mr. Mills? and why has he not published 
the finale of the negociation? Because it 
would lay bare his black heart, and prove 
him as base a wretch as ever disgraced the 
human shape. Reader, remember this over- 
ture from Mr. Mills, bears date 6th of Feb- 
ruary, 1830, and in less than two months, 
all arrangements ar.e completed with priva- 
cy. I am superseded without notice, by a 
new counsellor, and a most infamous decree 
is palmed upon the court, on which my be- 
trayer intended to oust the tenants of Elli- 
cot't and Meredith, and, no doubt, to 
surrender into the hands of T. D. 0 wings, 
or his father, Col. Thos. J. 0 wings, the 
possession so vilely and stealthily to be 
taken. 

Before, however, this vile betrayer had se- 
cured the pieces of silver Ibi his treachery, I 



detected and exposed his attempt to the Judge, 
who overhauled the gentleman's conduct and 
arrested his career; and this not only checked 
the gentleman in his treachery against his 
lawyer, but, as I have stated, I do not be- 
lieve foe ever showed his pretty face again in 
court, but turned preacher, and, as soon as 
he could, left the state instead, of hanging 
himself. 

Here I wish to remark, that I do not mean 
to be understood as intending to say or in- 
sinuate any thing dishonorable or unprofes- 
sional against Mr. Mills. For his client, he 
might honorably propose to Breckinridge a 
coalescence, against the titles of Meredith 
and Ellicott, and leave young 0 wings to ad- 
minister the physic — that is. to pay the pie- 
ces of silver. But, to explain fully that let- 
ter for Mr. Breckinridge, I will state the 
facts connected with my business with the 
iron works property, which I pledge myself 
not only to be substantially correct, but that 
I can so establish them to be from the records 
of the country, and by the testimony of living- 
witnesses as respectable as any. 

1st. John Breckinridge, being owner of a 
few shares only, out of forty-eight shares in 
the iron works company, on the 1st of 
March, 179S, sold his interest in the compa- 
ny for the enormous sum of £5,600, Ken- 
tucky currency, to Walter Beall and George 
Nicholas. Beall, becoming pay-master lor 
the whole, paid the j£5;600, as. foliowetm 
One thousand acres of land, near Louisville, 
at five pounds per acre, which is now, at the 
lowest prices of property, worth one hun- 
dred thousand dollars, and six hundred acres 
of land, on the Kentucky river, 1 near the 
mouth of Drenning's Lick Cieek, at £600, 
which Beall also paid, and which is the same 
land that cost his devisee four thousand acres 
of land, in Hardin County, and more than 
£3,000 besides. But, in the articles of 
agreement, between Beall, Nicholas and 
Breckinridge, Breckinridge agreed to convey 
to Beall and Nicholas, all his private claims 
that interfered with the company lands or 
bounds, being a circle of three miles around 
the Bourbon furnace; — also, his interest in 
John Mosby's three thousand acre survey, 
which he claimed to be one third, but to 
which he had no claim e9rthly; — also, his 
interest in a trace of five hundred acres, in- 
cluding the Olympian Springs. John Lee's 
claim of nine thousand and odd acres, pat- 



[ 42 J 



en ted to Breckinridge and Nicholas, in 
which Breckinridge was owner of only a 
third, and Nicholas owner of two-thirds, cov- 
ered the North-East side of the company's 
circle, about three thousand acres. Breckin- 
ridge and Nicholas bought this claim, at £10 
per hundred, which left Breckinridge to pay 
a little upwards of three hundred pounds, 

and Nicholas the balance, to pay on the 

day of 1796. Breckinridge paid John 

Lee two hundred pounds, as will fully ap- 
pear by a statement under his own hand, now 
on file in his suit with Lee's administrators, 
&c. — Lee's receipt for which, his hopeful 
son suppresses, but which I am attempting to 
draw from its cover, through the oath of the 
gentleman. This left but a little upwards of 
one hundred pounds, due from Breckinridge 
to Lee, and when applied to what was clue 
by Breckinridge on the thousand acres sold 
of his interest in the 9,000 acres, left Beall 
to pay a little upwards of fifty dollars, and 
Nicholas a little upwards of one hundred dol- 
lars; but 5 for good measure, say Nicholas and 
Beall owed Breckinridge, to pay Lee, two 
hundred dollars; and this was the utmost far- 
thing that could be claimed, if Breckin- 
ridge had have complied with his part of the 
contract, which both he and his heirs have 
failed to do. 

1st. He has not conveyed his interest in a 
single foot of the land he sold, as belonging 
to the iron works company. 

2d. He has failed to convey his interest in 
Lee's claim, so far as it interferes with the 
land claimed by the company—he has failed 
to convey his one sixth part of the Olympian 
Springs, or whatever interest he held— he has 
failed to convey the one thousand acres, out 
of three thousand, as patented to John Mos- 
by, worth, at the time of the contract, $10,- 
000, and now worth $20,000. The mort- 
gage only bound Beall and Nicholas to pay 
the persons who had sold Breckinridge 
lands, what Breckinridge owed; and the ut- 
most farthing due from him to Lee, could not 
exceed sixty pounds; that sum and interest, 
had Breckinridge complied, or had his heirs 
done so, Beall and Nicholas were bound for, 
and those standing in their stead are bound 
to pay. But until Breckinridge's heirs can 
and do comply, by conveying the land sold 
by their father, no court earthly can say that 
his heirs have any claim on Nicholas and 
Beall, or those claiming under them. 



However, as I have, after waiting seven* 
years on the gentleman and the other heirs 
for titles to the land sold to Beall and Nicho- 
las, and have received nothing but insolence 
and rebuke for my forbearance and disinclin- 
ation to distress a part of the heirs, as soon 
as the gentleman returns again to Kentucky, 
I will try if an action of covenant will effect 
any thing in obtaining justice, and stilling his 
slanderous tongue. I do not deem it proper 
or necessary to say more of the iniquitous 
conduct of the defendant, where I can make 
him amenable to the law; but as the claim of 
the pittance on Nicholas and Beall, on Be- 
alPs mortgage, has been the foundation of 
the infamous abuse and slander which the 
wretch has vented upon me about his suit, I 
deem it proper to state, that the sixty pounds 
are all that could be recovered under the 
mortgage, in all and every contingency, and 
that land not touched by Ellicott and Mere- 
dith's purchases, to more than thirty thousand 
dollars, remain subject to the mortgage, to 
pay that sixty pounds. When I filed the 
bill; Alfred Grayson, who directed the suit, 
informed me, that the whole of Lee's claim 
of 10,000 acres lay on the company's prop- 
erty. I knew nothing of the situation of ei- 
ther the claim of Lee, or of the situation of 
the company lands, having never been but 
once within less than twelve miles of either, 
and then I was travelling. Afterwards, how- 
ever, I got sight of a map of the company, 
which showed the interference to be only par- 
tial, I amended the bill, which is the in- 
consistency in the bill, prated about by the 
slanderer. As a lawyer, I took the state- 
ments of his brother-in-law, my client; and 
the complainants, and not the lawyer, among 
honest men, are responsible for the truth of 
the facts alledged. With such lawless slan- 
derers as Judas, it turns out that the lawyer ,- 
and not the client, is to know the client states 
the truth. Nor did I know the futility and 
injustice of the whole claim, under the mort- 
page, until I got sight of the bond which 
the gentleman slipt into the Clerk's office. 

Long before the year 1827, I had com- 
menced suits against Col. Thos. D. O wings, 
for Luke Tiernan, on a plain note, for be- 
tween five and six. thousand dollars— the 
same on a note to Samuel Smith, for about 
$17,000, and on one to Comegys and Per- 
shouse, for about $>2,000. After judgments 
were obtained on these several notes, they 



[ 43 ) 



weie replevied repeatedly under our delay 
statutes, and Col. 0 wings enjoined those of 
Smith and Tiernan, perhaps twice. I know 
he twice enjoined Smith, and gave forth- 
coming bonds, which he failed to comply 
with until Smith's debt actually amounted to 
more than fifty thousand dollars, and that of 
Tiernan, to more than fifteen thousand, and 
that of Pershouse, &c. to several thousand 
dollars. The whole burden of the cost of 
these mighty debts fell upon me, as the secu- 
rity for costs; and that circumstance, togeth- 
er with my being. security to General Smith 
upon thirty or forty land suits in the Federal 
Court and State Courts, not only oppressed 
me during a period of twenty years, but 
made Mr. Tiernan my debtor, nearly five 
thousand dollars, for costs paid, and profes- 
sional services, and General Smith, in like 
manner, about twenty thousand dollars. — 
Sales were effected first on Mr Tiernan 's exe- 
cutions, of many acres of land, at sacrificing 
rates. Owing to Col. 0 wings having covered 
his property with a sweeping mortgage, and 
his threats to still hold the land, because, in 
the sales, the marshal would not respect the 
relief statutes of the State, a small portion of 
■Col. 0 wings lands were truly sold to satisfy, 
in part, Comegysand Pershouse, and a part to 
satisfy Smith's executions, at sacrificing rates. 
Owing to the same causes, the other creditors 
and his mortgagees took the balance of his 
land, his slaves and his personal estate — 
les.ving, on the executions in my hands, a bal- 
ance of about fifty thousand dollars, to be 
made out of his unfortunate securities. — 
They were, in all, I. believe, about six in 
number; all well to live, but unable to pay 
the enormous balances due. Their property 
was seized and sold, and a bill in chancery 
brought, to set aside conveyances which they 
had made to cover their property, to save 
themselves from utter ruin, when I learned 
by letter, from Mr. Tiernan, that Col. Ow- 
ings, the principal, had, through his friends, 
the relations of his family, agreed with him, 
that if he would relinquish his purchases to 
the children of Col. 0 wings, or in trust for 
them, that a Mrs. Carr, a great-aunt of -Col. 
Owings's children, would pay him his debt. 
Mr. Tiernan's purchases, then embracing all 
the most valuable lands, and leaving but a 
trifle to pay Smith's great debt with, Mr. 
Tiernan requested me to continue his execu- 
tions, and, if I could, to buy in the whole of 



Col. Owings's land. To this letter, I Mtik 
I made no other reply, but to acknowledge 
its receipt; for while I felt it my duty neither 
to divulge the secrets communicated by my 
client, nor to interfere with his rights to sell, I 
felt determined to give no further aid in cov- 
ering Col. Owings's property, best to seize 
and sell upon the other executions, if I could 
find estate, and visited the country where he 
lived, with that view, but found that the 
whole of Col. Owings's property visile, not 
swept by Tiernan's debt, was taken by other 
creditors. On my return home, I visited 
one of Col. Owings's securities to the amount 
of $30,000; every dollar of which he would 
have to pay. I had known him from youth 
to old age, and found him surrounded by one 
of the most lovely and interesting families I 
ever knew, with this impending ruin over 
him. I knew not what I could do or ought 
to do, to relieve him. I saw the visible 
marks of despondency, not only on Irs own 
brow, but upon his whole family, who well 
understood his condition. I left him and his 
family, with feelings I deem it unnecessary to 
describe, for I knew, that in a few months, 
the whole weight of the responsibility would 
fall upon the family, and sweep from them 
all the visible property they possessed. 

On reaching home, however, I received 
from Mr Tiernan, a letter, informing me that 
Col. 0 wings had failed to give to Mrs. Carr 
the promised security for the return of her 
advances, to buy in the estate for his chil- 
dren, and that he, through the entreaties of 
her relations, had agreed to release her from 
her engagements, and had actually returned 
her $5,000. which she had paid, and deliver- 
ed up her negociablc notes for the balance, 
and urging me to use all proper means to se- 
cure the balance of his debt, and further of- 
fering me an interest of one-third in all the 
purchases, and money to carry on the iron 
works. Here, and at this moment, I devised 
in my own mind, a way not only to relieve 
my friend, but the whole of Col. Owings's 
securities, from the debts in my hands, 

The reader will observe, that long before 
this period, Gen. Smith had failed, and had 
transfersed to Thomas Eilicott and Jonathan 
Meredith, as trustees, for the use of the Bank 
of the United States, the whole of the debt, 
except $5,000, which he reserved to cover 
the costs and fees due me. I immediately 
wrote to Luke Luman, that he was old, and 



f 44 j 



I was not young, and that the business of 
managing iron works was not understood by 
either, and that I therefore declined his prop- 
osition for* that reason, as well as from no de- 
sire to own any of the property of Col. Ow- 
ings's; but stated, that if he would accept his 
debt and simple interest, I would devise a 
way by which' he should get it; not doubting 
that he would accept my offer. I immediate- 
ly wrote to my friend, and two other of the 
securities of Col. Owings, that if they would 
advance the balance due to Tiernan and the 
trustees of Col. Owings. who, (as well .as 
they,) were bound for most of the debts I had 
against Col. Owings, would accede to my 
plan, I could and would relieve them from the 
great responsibilities they were laboring un- 
der. I also wrote to EUicott and Meredith, 
and to the agent of the Bank of the United 
States, at Philadelphia, and had interviews 
with their agent at Lexington, by which I 
succeeded in getting their assent, that I should 
levy the executions of Smith, on the whole 
of the tracts bought by Tiernan, and' bid the 
amount of the debts due. Mr. Turnan con- 
sented to accept his debt and interest, and the 
three securities to advance to me the balance 
due on the executions of Turnan; and Col. 
Owings's trustees agreed to release their title, 
and to convey the purchaser the interest of 
themselves and Col. Owings. I, of course, 
had the executions so levied, and the amount 
due, bid for the lands bought for Turnan, 
and thereby purchased in for Thomas EUi- 
cott and Jonathan Meredith, trustees to the 
Bank of the United States, and caused the 
marshal to execute a deed to them for the 
land so bought; and the trustees of Col. Ow- 
ings, also, to relinquish and convey, both as 
trustees and agents for Owings, to Ellicott 
and Meredith; and as agent for Tiernan, I re- 
linquished his right also to Ellicott and Mer 
edith, thereby, as I supposed, concentrating 
every possible claim in said Ellicott and 
Meredith. 

In thus arranging the business, I not only 
relieved six or seven innocent men from ut- 
ter ruin, but released Col. Owings from the 
payment of at least seventy thousand dol- 
lars; for his claim to the lands bought, 
which, with a perfect title, were not worth 
Hfty thousand dollars, upon a credit of five 
- T ears. 

Bu$ the heavy fall was at last on myself, 
to accept of Owings's securities. 



Kentucky funds* which were two or tike© 
per cent, below par; but Turnan insisted on 
his debt and interest in Baltimore funds.— 
This, I had to Jose. And when the notes of 
the securities fell due, one of the securities 
was, for other securityships, so shattered- by 
Col. Owings, that he could only pay a part. 
I had, therefore, to advance the money for 
him; and, by some unaccountable mistake* 
paid Mr. Turban nineteen-hundred and eigh- 
ty-four dollars and eighty cents, in Baltimore 
funds, over and above every farthing due 
him! Before I discovered the error, Mr. 
Turnan Decame embarrassed, and finally 
died; and although 1 have brought suit for the 
over-payment, which, according to the com- 
sioneis report, now, I think, exceeds -$3,000, 
I never expect to realize one dollar of it; 
and a small balance is due me to this day, 
from the defaulting security. 

On this arrangement being completed, the 
securities of Col. Owings were rescued from 
ruin, and the trustees of' Col. Owings put 
the tenants of Ellicott asd Meredith in pos- 
session of the iron works. But while I was 
thus exerting myself at the serious loss I have 
just mentioned, Col. Owings's natural son, 
T. J. Owings, bought up or obtained the 
control of a small execution of about $700, 
in favor of Alexander Hodge, against his fa- 
ther, and levied it not only on the whole land, 
bought in at the enormous prices I have sta- 
ted, but every other acre of land his father 
possessed or claimed to possess, and, for the 
merest trifles, bought the whole, and then 
applied to the most of the tenants and obtain- 
ed their attornments. But the tenants occu- 
pying the furnace and forge, refused attorn- 
ments, still relying on the. warranty of Elli- 
cott and Meredith, to maintain them to the 
extent of their respective leases. In this 
condition, this son of Col. Owings, either 
with his own or his father's money, engaged 
Mr. Mills to aid him in depriving his father's 
creditors of the land, who had paid upwards 
•of $70,000 for the land, and to secure them 
to himself for less than $700. It was after 
Mills was thus engaged, that.he w 7 rote Breck- 
inridge the letter referred to, inviting him to 
a meeting and coalescence against Ellicott 
and Meredith. Who he sent the letter by, 
and what answer Judas made, he suppresses; 
and what bargain he did make with either 
Mills or Owings, he also suppresses. But 
the language of the letter, and comparing it 



E l r > J 



with after events, and the conductor Breck- 
inridge and of young 0 wings and his lather, 
point most clearly to a final arrangement be- 
tween them. Mills wanted Breckinridge's 
old mortgage to defeat the action of ejectment 
brought by Ellicott and Meredith, against 
their treacherous tenants, who had attorned 
to young Owings. But the mortgage would 
only cover an undivided eighteen-forty-eight 
parts; but if Breckinridge could get a decree 
against Owings, and sell, and young Owings 
buy the whole iron works on his sale, why 
then Mills expected both a shield and a 
sword to fight with, Breckinridge wanted 
his money; but if T. D. Owings answered his 
bill, he could gdt no decree, and could not, of 
course, help young Owings either to recover 
or to defend his purchases. Young Owings, 
no doubt, obviated all difficulties in Breckin- 
ridge's way, by engaging that his father should 
let a decree go by default, in favor of Breck- 
inridge, and to the amount he chose to take 
it. Breckinridge had, heretofore, two regu- 
lar counsel, Charlton Hunt and myself, and: 
both were superseded by a new lawyer, who 
was, no doubt, employed for the occasion, 
Breckinridge himself being too ignorant to 
draw his own decree. 

By these means Breckinridge took a de- 
cree, for about ten thousand dollars, against 
T. D. Owings, who had no interest whatev- 
er in the land, but was tenant, and interested 
when the suit was brought, notwithstanding 
he had not filed the evidences of his debt, 
and had no process served on the mortgagee, 
Beall, nor was process served on Nicholas's 
heirs; and notwithstanding that it was utterly 
untrue, that Nicholas and Beall owed any- 
thing on the contract of 1798, and the mort- 
gage, because Breckinridge had not complied 
with the contract; and if he had complied 
with the contract, not more than sixty pounds 
could, in any event, be due. But what ren- 
dered the act more villainous was, that 
Breckinridge took a decree for every dollar 
due Lee, for the whole nine thousand acres 
sold Nicholas Breckinridge holding more than 
six thousand acres of the survey of Lee, not 
touched by the mortgage, which, upon the bill 
and the mortgage itself, was excluded. An 
order of sale of the whole iron works prop- 
erty was decreed, and the property advertis- 
ed to take place at Owingsville, where 
young Owings resided, and where he was 
ready, no doubt, according to contract, to 



buy at the sale, the whole propeity,.and' pay 
to Breckinridge his debt, so soon as, under 
Breckinridge's decree and 1 sale, he couldi 
oust the balance of Ellicott and Meredith's 
tenants. And the deed' and the original 
mortgage, according to Mr. Mills s scheme, 
were to cover over the fraudulent sales made 
to young O wings, who, for the paltry sum of 
six or seven thousand dollars, was to acquire 
a property that cost Ellicott and Meredith, 
&c, more than eighty thousand dollars, and 
Judas was to pocket the whole amount of the 
debt due from Nicholas and Breckinridge to 
Lee. And as Nicholas had' paid nothing 
whatever for the land to Lee, Breckinridge 
was to become owner of the seven thousand 
acres, outside of the iron works company 
bounds, notwithstanding he had not paid any 
thing, and his father had paid only tw 7 o hun. 
dred pounds on the whole claim of ten thou- 
sand acres. As I have before stated, I de- 
tected this villainous proceeding just before 
the sale was effected, exposed it to the court, 
and Judge Hickey, who gave the decree— » 
the regular Judge, and not a' locum-tenens,, 
as Judas has again and again asserted most 
falsely — set it aside: 

I, Harry I. Bodley, Clerk of the Fayette Cir- 
cuit Court, do certify, that in the case of John 
Breckinridge's administrators, vs. John Lee's 
executors, &c, an order was made on the 26th 
of September, 1831, as follows: 

"The court being sufficiently, ad vised herein,, 
it is decreed and ordered that the interlocutory 
decree heretofore entered this cause, be set 
aside." 

Said order was made when Thomas M. Hick- 
ey, the regular Judge of said court, was on the 
bench, and the proceedings of that day were 
signed by sa.id Hickey. " H. I. BODLEY. 

March 6, 1843. 

For this nefarious transaction, Judas was: 
not so fortunate as his great exemplar, who. 
secured the piice of his treachery and base- 
ness before he committed the treason; but 
in one respect, he proved himself a more har- 
dened' wretch, Judas the elder, threw away 
the cursed pieces and hung himself with a 
rope; but his successor, instead of trying 
hemp, made tracks, as the saying is — left the 
state, saying, as he well might, a prophet has 
no honor in his own country. Nor was: 
young Owings more fortunate in his bargain,, 
(if he made one, as I have supposed.) He 
is said to have expended large sums in' feeing: 
lawyers, and to have become so intoxicated 
with the idea of regaining, for a trifle, his fa. 



t 46 J 



flier's great estates, that he committed one in- 
discretion after another until one cost him his 
life. After his death, his father, under his 
will, took up the contested claims of his 
.son,' but was beaten in every court, and final- 
ly, after expending immensely, and Gausing 
Ellicott and Meredith to spend not a little 
ahout the purchases of young Owings, aban- 
doned them and the country. 

The reader will observe that I pretend to 
no certain knowledge of the private and se- 
cret contract between Breckinridge and Ow- 
ings. I state the facts on which I found 
my belief, and leave the world to judge 
whether he was stimulated to the base act by 
the motives I ascribe to him, or from the na- 
tive depravity of his heart, and a fiendish soul 
desperately bent upon wickedness, from the 
mere love of evil. 

Having heretofore repelled, and, as I think, 
fully proven the imputations of Judas, that 
the cause of his proving traitor to me, was 
my first treason against him, in taking sides 
against him, and finally buying the property 
lie pretends his father owned and he claims, 
I will waste the reader's time but a few mo- 
ments on his last impudent assertion of the 
fact. It should be borne in mind, that Breck- 
inridge held only a mortgage to secure the 
payment of what ought to be paid for the 
one thousand acres of Lee's survey, that lay 
within the iron works, which, at ten pounds 
per one hundred acres, is precisely one hun- 
dred pounds; on which Breckinridge had ac- 
tually paid Lee sixty-six and two thirds pounds, 
leaving due Lee, on the land sold to Nicholas 
and Beall, thirty-three and one-third pounds, 
which sum, and no more, were Nicholas and 
Beall bound to pay, and which sum alone 
did Beall's mortgage cover, and this alone 
can ever be recovered if one farthing is ever 
recovered under the mortgage. 

In 1830, Breckinridge received the letter 
from Mills, and in sixty days, under the pre- 
tence of his mortgage, took a decree for 
nearly ten thousand dollars without my 
knowledge, though I had brought the suit, 
and was in full and successful management 
of it, not with a view to get this pittance on- 
ly, but to recover from Col. Nicholas's exec- 
utor and heirs, about six thousand dollars 
which Breckinridge's heirs had paid for 
them, -and which they were in equity and law, 
bound to return. This conduct, so insulting 
.to me at the time — that is, in 1830 — caused 



me to withdraw my name from the suit im- 
mediately, and to leave Mr. Breckinridge to 
his shifts with other lawyers, and other law- 
yers he pretended to employ from that day 
to this. After I withdrew from the suit and 
ceased to have any intercourse with him for 
six whole years, I purchased from the Bank 
of the United States their| interest in the 
debt of General Smith, which amounted to 
about eleven hundred thousand dollars, ex- 
clusive of interest, to secure the payment of 
which, they had taken a mortgage from Gen, 
Smith, for a vast amount of mountain land, 
and his judgment against Col. Owings. This 
contract was made for me in Philadelphia, by 
my friend and neighbor, Benjamin Gratz, 
Esq., in 1836; upwards of six years after 
Judas received the letter from Mills, and 
had, as I verily believe, entered into his cov- 
enous agreement with young Owings, to 
which I have referred. That my purchase 
was more than six years after I had the rup- 
ture with Breckinridge, and, owing to his dis- 
honorable and ungentlemanly conduct, re- 
nounced the management of the suit, and all 
business for the family of Breckinridge, will 
appear from the records of Fayette, and the 
date of my deed from the bank, and can be 
verified by Mr. Gratz. And yet has the har- 
dened wretch had the baseness to say that 
this purchase, that happened six years or 
more after he was guilty of imposing upon 
the court and coming to a rupture with my- 
self, was the sole cause of his treachery and 
base conduct towards me. What injury did 
I do him in buying? This mortgage was on 
the land. I only held as the bank held.— 
Breckinridge did not claim the land, but 
held it as security for the payment of an un- 
liquidated sum which cannot and does not ex- 
ceed sixty pounds, if even that were due. It 
is still due, and the land still liable; but that 
nothing is due on the mortgage he not only 
knows but shall feel. I will not take the land. 
He may and shall take back his father's shares, 
and pay me what her eceived from Beall; for, 
as I have said, neither his father nor his heirs 
have made deeds according to his bond, and 
neither he nor they ever had atitletomuch of 
the property sold; and that he knows that his 
claim is not worth a stiver under the mort- 
gage, is proven from the fact, that although 
his suit has been depending nearly or quite 
thirty-one years, and more than thirteen years 
since I had any thing to do with its manage- 



t 47 J 



ment, he has never yet brought BealFs exec- 
utor before the court, nor issued process to 
the county where he Jives; and although he 
knows that his devisee has been dead for 
years, he has not even filed a bill of revivor 
against his heirs. Ignorant as Judas is of 
the law, he has sense enough never to bring 
that part of the case that relates to the mort- 
gage to trial. 

He has a fair claim on the representatives 
of Col. Nicholas, for two thirds of what he 
has paid Lee's executors; but he has made 
such gross charges about his heavy claim on 
my estate, he is ashamed to bring his case to 
trial, upon the contract of 1798. Indeed, 
if they retort an action of covenant on him, 
upon that contract, they may make him feel 
the consequences of his collusions with oth- 
ers, to cheat and defraud Ellicott and Mere- 
dith. 

It is here proper, however, to notice a vil- 
lainous slander of the Parson's— that is, that 
I was the cause of the ruin of Col. 0 wings. 
It is grossly untrue that I ever had a trans- 
action, except as the lawyer of Col. Owings, 
with him, that I now recollect of, except one 
in which I exchanged a small piece of prop- 
erty with him. Col. Owings's debts to the 
United States were enormous, as 1 under- 
stand, and his private debts amounted to 
more than double what his estate was really 
worth. As the agent of Ellicott and Mere- 
dith, I .offered in open court, Col. Owings 
being present, to his attorney, Mr. Haggin, 
to let Col. Owings (on security) have ten 
years, without interest, to pay the debts of 
Tiernan and Smith, and to return him his 
property, which was declined, the debts be 
ing, as I have before stated, greatly more 
than the fair value of the property received. 
Indeed, the purchase of the property, more 
than six years aftewards, was matter of expe- 
diency, not of choice. As I have stated, I 
had, as attorney and counsellor at law for 
General Smith, and as his security and agent, 
an account against him, over and above all I 
had received, upwards of sixteen thousand 
dollars, for which I deemed the land in the 
hands of the bank liable, and so advised the 
bank, but was postoned by the bank, advis- 
ing a sale of the property and that I should 
retain my charges, &c. A sale was effect- 
ed, but after permitting 49,000 acres of the 
land to be sold for about $1,100, I was 
compelled, to save a total sacrifice of all the 



property, to buy in the balance for the bank* 
By the time I effected this, the bank charter . 
expired, and steps were being taken by the 
bank to sell all her western claims, this, 
among the rest, and I ascertained that a com- 
pany of speculators were actually preparing 
to buy them, when I should be left to a 
doubtful contest in chancery, to recover my 
account, or to lose it altogether; and to save 
that occurrence, I engaged Mr. Gratz to ef- 
fect a purchase. 

To be sure, I reserved my recourse on Gen, 
Smith, but I knew him to be insolvent, and 
1 have never even demanded any thing from 
him, for either my account or the millions as- 
signed to me on him by'theBank. I know 
others, as well as Judas, have spoken of this 
affair as a speculation. They, like him, 
have neither the mind or money to take it off 
of my hands. If they have, I shall be most 
happy to yield back the land and. receive 
what I gave for it. 

I cannot follow Judas -through his ninety 
pages in detail; I must therefore pass over 
much of his abuse and slander with a single 
and broad denial. As to his most villainous 
threats of investigating my conduct — espe- 
cially in relation to the affairs of General 
Howard, Sally Howard and John Howard, I 
can but give to every insinuation the creature 
has made, my indignant charge of wilful and 
base falsehood, and defy the wretch that lives 
in truth to charge upon me one unkind, un- 
just cr illiberal act towards those persons; 
but on the contrary, whenever and wherever 
my conduct in relation to either of the indi- 
viduals or their' representatives shall be in 
vestigated, it will be seen that few men had 
the means of acting, with the liberality I did 
towards them; and no man living ever, under 
like cirenmstances, in all and every particu- 
lar, could have acted with more kindness 
and justice than I have. This the bi- 
ped knows will be testified to, by not on- 
ly the records, but by every human being 
that has either an interest in the name or 
property of those beloved and valued rela- 
tives, whose ashes have been disturbed, and 
whose names have been profaned by the 
black mouth and base tongue of Robert Ju- 
das Breckinridge. 

Equally base is the insinuation that I have 
injured others Avhose names he ventures to ut- 
ter. Some of these persons I never saw or 
heard of. Most of them had no estates to 



fese. and it is a base falsehood, that from any 
t)f them I have ever acquired a cent's worth of 
property by dishonorable means, or without 
a fair and adequate price paid. And I here, 
as I have done before, pronounce all his in- 
sinuations that he knows or believes he can 
rove, in my long life, one single blot or dis- 
onorable act, impudent- falsehoods, utter- 
ed by a wretch who is as utterly void of truth as 
he ever has been of one single manly or gen- 
erous emotion pf the heart. 

But this impostor, finding me invulnerable 
in my character, attempts to assail my peace 
by constantly intimating that I am no duellist 
1 — that I have* from time to time, permitted 
myself to be bullied by the knights of the 
pistol. To. his former insinuation I have 
said — true, I have never been a duellist — -I 
have never shed human blood, and certainly 
never had any desire to shed my own with a 
duellist, if I could decently and without dis- 
grace avoid it— that I was an old man, and 
he a preacher, and I thought he had better, 
on that account, not talk about what a game 
cock he had been — that I never run — that I 
had never refused a challenge when invited 
by a decent man to fight — but I knew who 
had run and hid himself* after giving an in- 
sult, and counselled him not to talk about 
duels upon the principle that a rope should 
not be named, when there had been hanging 
in the family. He, however, wilinot take 
my advice, but comes out, confesses he would 
not fight, and was posted a coward, and then 
was. about to get ready to fight, out was arbi- 
trated out of it by the arbitrators deciding 
that the gentleman ought to be satisfied with 
his apology. He then gives a long list of 
names who had challenged me to fight — some 
of them without legs — some of them without 
characters, and most of them I had never had 
a word of difference with in my life. The 
only one that he mentioned that I ever had 
a serious one with, seeing his reference writes 
a contradiction of the insinuation, that I had 
not met my call, as was usual. Still, the 
poor creature's mind runs on duels, and to be 
up with me in some way, he says I challeng- 
ed General Walton, but did not fight him. — 
Where Judas could have gotten the hints 
from, on which he founded this falsehood, 
I know not. As I once had a misunder- 
standing with General Walton of a very 
trivial character, I suppose he must have 
heard of that, and the balance is a manu- 



facture of his prolific brain. Gen. Walton^ 
difference with me happened, I think, just 
forty years ago. It grew out of a mistake, 
and was explained and settled without a 
challenge, honoiably to the heart of General 
Walton; and that he did not consider me 
dishonored, is inferrable from the fact that 
from that reconciliation until the day of his 
death, he honored me with both his political 
and private friendship. Gen. Walton was a 
most amiable and beloved man. It was a 
long time, a very long time* before the writer 
fabricated his story, that I had indeed ceased 
to lament his death, which I sincerely did. — 
•Time had almost worn it from my memory-. 
1 thought there was scarce a human being 
that recollected our slight difference-, and 
where Judas could have got it from, heaven 
alone can tell, unless he derived it from the 
source he so often draws upon — the Devil 
himself. I am sure I have not heard the cir- 
cumstance spoken of for the last thirty, years-. 

The gentleman is next disposed to play the 
game his master played on our mother Eve 
— that is, to try what he can impress upon 
my wife's mind, and has most kindly in- 
formed her and the world, that I have prac- 
ticed' a most egregious fraud upon her, in 
obtaining from her the property she ought 
not to have given to me. But he thinks, | 
as Judas of old did, who thought that the 
oil that Martha anointed the Saviour with 
was wasted, and should have been sold, 
and the money or price put into his bag. 
The reverend Robert Judas, no doubt, 
thinks that if my wife's land and ne- 
groes were sold, and the proceeds put in- 
to his bag for the benefit of the poor slaves) 
it would enable him not only to circulate 
Baltimore literary and religious slanders 
throughout the worid, but even enable him 
to give his brother George Thompson an- 
other battle before the assembled abolition- 
ists at Glasgow, and to again declare before 
them and the world, that he cannot tell 
whether Caesar and the other insurrectionists 
of Southampton, who committed murders, $ 
arsons and rapes— -butchering young maidens 
and cutting the throats of infant s^ or the peo- 
ple of Virginia, that quelled them, commit- 
ted the greatest barbarities, or were the great- 
est barbarians. It so turns out, it seems, 
that I have committed the unpardonable of- 
fence of converting to my own use, my wife's 
estate: and this is one serious offence for 



L 49 J 



fyhich i am arraigned before the world; and 
for which he is imploring the maledictions of 
his church upon my head. In this brutish 
assailment of my domestic relations, I do not 
believe the wretch has either the countenance 
or the aid of the church of which he is a 
member, and a disgrace; but that he has alone 
been instigated to it by the devil. ' While I 
Would not degrade mysell to notice a being 
so lost to all the social virtues as Judas in 
the general, yet. as he has twice had the im- 
pudence to assail my peace by dragging into 
his publications my wife', to the great gratifi-. 
cation of his miserable supporters, that the 
honest man and the world may duly appre- 
ciate their efforts, I will bear the mortifica- 
tion of explaining my domestic relations to 
my fellow-citizens. 

In pages 75-6, of his third libel, the slan- 
derer charges me, in substance, with availing 
myself of my power over my wife's free will, 
to force from her, a deed of her fee-simple 
estate, and a renunciation of all claim to 
dower in my lands, for no other or further 
provision for her, than a dower in her own 
lands, so conveyed to me; and- after much 
misrepresentation and abuse, exclaims: 

''For a man of great wealth to permit a gen- 
erous and irue-hearted wife to do an act of this 
sort, strikes trie as eminently sordid." 

• It cannot fail to strike the reader, that this 
wretch, like his prototype, betrays with a kiss. 
He has not only here called my wife true- • 
hearted, but in other pages of his libel, he even 
declares he loves my wife. Very frank, I ad- 
mit, in the amorous parson; but as I don't 
think my wife loves him, I shall certainly 
not be jealous. 

To return, however, to the charge, that I 
have either dealt unkindly or unjustly with, 
my wife in the matter referred to — to refute 
this slander, it, will only be necessary to state 
the' transaction as it appears of record, to 
prove Judas a most despicable-falsifier. He 
says that l'only granted my wife a dower in- 
terest in her own land, and deprived her of 
dower in my own. So far from this being 
the fact, the deed not only settles a life es- 
tate, clear of all my creditors, and even the 
power of sale by myself, in my- wife's 
land, but embraces two favorite slaves - of 
my own, and the whole of those acquired by 
my marriage in fee. Also, my Ellerslie es- 
tate, and other lands adjoining, which cost me 
G 



upwards of twenty-five thousand dollars; — 
The deed also expressly reserves to 'Mrs. 
Wickliffe, her dower 'rights in my other 
slaves, and personal estate of every kind — 
making a mass of property, worth, at least, 
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars! I 
had then, and have now, my mansion and 
appertanent buildings, with about thirty acres 
surrounding gardens and orchards, within the 
city of Lexington, and between eighty and 
a hundred slaves, with farms adjoining Lex- 
ington, in the highest state of cultivation, 
amounting to more than 1500 acres of the 
best Fayette land, which will pass by the 
deeol. The farms wOuld, at the lowest 
rates of renting, produce four thousand 
dollars per annum; and the slaves, besides 
what will be necessary for the cultivation of 
the- garden, orchards, &c, will hire for near- 
ly that sum. Besides this, I then had, and 
still keep an instrument, that on my death, 
provides that my household establishment is 
to remain untouched, and to her use, during 
her life, 'and subject to her disposal forever, 
and the deed granted her a free-hold, free of 
charge, for waste; thus giving to my wife a 
larger jointure, than I believe has ever been 
settled by an individual in the State, and se- 
curing her an annual income of at least ten 
times more than one of her economical hab- 
its of life would require, for every comfort 
and convenience in life. A provision great- 
ly larger than she either required or desired 
me to make. But I not only intended that 
she should have all she wanted herself, but 
an ample fund, over and above, to exercise 
her natural benevolence and kindness on, 
not only towards objects of charity, but to 
such as shall minister to her happiness in the 
eye of life. 

From this statement, the reader will per- 
ceive that the slanderer has not only sup- 
pressed the truth; but wilfully misrepresented 
the estates actually . set apart by me, for'my 
wife's use. He has not only done this, but 
grossly misrepresented the wealth of my 
wife, at the time of my marriage. He states 
that her estates real and personal, amounted 
to several hundred thousand dollars. Her 
estate, at the time of our marriage, consisted 
of a farm near Lexington, and houses be- 
sides, that did not rent for what paid the tax- 
es on them, and kept them in repair, and 
some waste and' unproductive pieces of prop- 
erly in the town, with some slaves and pm - -- 



[ 50 ] 

sonal estate — her whole income from every her father, and I felt a pride in placing his 
source, being less than seven hundred dollars only child, my wife, not only in affluence af- 
annually, I was myself in debt aoout thir- ter my death, but leaving her a freeholder* 
ty thousand dollars, as endorser for other peo- in a valuable real estate, including all that re- 
ple that had failed — had a large estate in mained of her father's settlement and pre- 
lands and slaves, but was in low and threat- emption, as well as whatever lands I owned 1 
ning health, with seven infant and helpless adjoining to it; the whole, forming a mass of 
children. productive property, greatly beyond what her 

My wife's farms w 7 ere in the most wretch- possible wants could demand, and much 
ed state of cultivation and tenantry, and did more than she would have taken, if the dis- 
not yield, in all, five hundred dollars annual- tribution between her and my children had 
ly, while her tenants .destroyed more than been left to herself. 

one thousand dollars worth of timber. She This large estate was not only, free from 
was younger than myself, and at the time I incumbrance, but the control of executors 
made the settlement, I expected to live but a and trustees. The whole of my debts and 
few years. So situated, I felt myself called business of every kind being charged upon 
on to make, arrangements for my wife and the remainder of my estate, reserved for my 
children after my death. I had paid off all children. She had, and deserved the confi- 
her debts, which would have been embar- dence of my children, and had raised one in 
rassing to her, though not large, and made her bosom that never knew her own mother, 
several efforts to sell her farm, with a view who will, if Providence allow, succeed to what 
to fund the money for her exclusive use. I her mother has; and while I placed my wife 
offered the land, on time, at forty dollars per above the pressure of want, and the danger 
acre, but could get only thirty dollars offered, of ingratitude of children, I had, and have. a 
For this sum I deemed it imprudent to sell; perfect confidence, that as far as depends, 
and to continue it at rent, was worse than to by 'nature, upon her, my children will 
permit it to lay waste. To put it into a be treated both .kindly and justly. This 
proper state for cultivation, I knew would statement, I hope, will satisfy Judas, that af- 
take time, and cost at least ten thousand dol- ter my death,, my wife will require no aids 
lars; which time and money or labor, I felt.it from his bag, or negro funds, to sustain life; 
my duty net to throw away upon an estate nor will it ever be filled by. her, out of either 
that w T ould pass into the hands of others af- her father's or my own labor; so that instead 
ter the death of my wife, who was not only of looking to my wife's estate as a beggar's 
childless, but had" neither father, mother, fund, he had better pursue the old scent until 
brother or sister to inherit her estate, large or he supplants his brother Thompson,, as negro 1 
small; and in the event of the law distribu- agent for the British abolitionists, 
ting it, according to the course of descents. It is true, that my wife's estate was a very 
her estate would pass, perhaps, to collaterals, large one, as left to her by her father, but it 
amounting to more than one hundred individ- had been diminished, in part, by the discove- 
uals, all having equal claims, by blood and ry of Ke.nhawa Salt Works, rendering her 
affection, upon her. I had, at the time, no Man's Lick estate valueless, and by other 
less than eight farms in cultivation, under causes arising from her infancy and desolate 
overseers, and more than that many tene- condition, -over which she seems to have had 
ments besides, rented out. So situated, to but little control, and not the least among 
undertake the improvement and cultivation them, was ths insolvency of a step-father, 
of another, was, on many accounts, by no who put up a claim to dower in favor of his 
means desired. But I confess that I felt it, wife, whose counsel was the gentleman's fa- 
in some measure, a duty I owed -to her, not ther, in the lands of the infant, in which the - 
to do as other husbands sometimes do — as first husband, Col. Todd, had neither an ac- 
this very Judas has done — sell off a wife's tual nor a legal seisin during his life. This 
lands and convert it into money, and leave claim was resisted by General Levi Todd^ 
her to scuffle in w T idow hood, among creditors the guardian' of Mrs. Wickliffe, but the gen- 
and children for support, although my wife tleman's father succeeded in taking the ward- 
was perfectly willing I should do so. The ship out of the hand of Col. Todd, either by 
lands had been purchased'with the blood of law or His voluntary renunciation of it, and 



I Si ] 

a guardian Was appointed, that accorded the Gen. Todd, -and- not my wife, were owners, 

•dower, which went principally to the credit- in fee, of her whole estate, and that I would 

ors of the step father. And it is this piece of be sued on her warranty deeds, &c. &c. &c. 

service, for which the gentleman puts in his No sooner did I hear of this slander, than I 

claim for his father's services rendered my was convinced it was the fabrication of Ju- 

wife, when an infant. I make no complaint das alone: for, although I knew I had ene~ 

against his father: he had a right to serve his mies, I did not believe I had one, save him- 

•client; and as. far as I know or believe, he self, base and vile enough to circulate the 

was well disposed towards my wife and fam- falsehood; and vet, do it so artfully, as to give 

ily. But I only speak of the transaction it the appearance Of mysterious probability, 

from tradition, and I have sought in vain, I set to work and soon traced the lie to Ju- 

from papers or those who knew his father, das, and immediately advertised him in the 

for one single professional act ever performed newspapers and in pamphlet form. I charg- 

by him, for Mrs. Wickliffe, at any time. — ed him with circulating the falsehood, know- 

And I verily believe, that except his employ- ing it to be false, and of circulating it to en- 

ment against her guardian, General Todd, list the the cupidity of the mercenary part of 

(of which I know nothing but through re- my wife's relations, if she had such, and to 

port,) he never was concerned in any way produce suspicion and bad feelings between 

earthly, in her business. Yet, has Judas, out her and her relatives, with whom our inter, 

of Jiis own brain, created a story, that she is course had always, theretofore, been kind. — 

greatly indebted to his father for unrequitted And how does the parson now escape the 

services, when she was in helpless infancy, charge of wilful, deliberate and malicious 

when, in point of fact, if my information is falsehood? Why, by stating in the 74th 

correct, his interference produced the resigna- page of his last libel, as followeth: 
tion of Gen. Todd, from which I have rea- "In regard to ike will of Col. Todd, I will 

son to know, she sustained a great loss; and merely state, that my father was long the eonfi- 

her mother, the dowager, in the end, derived dential fnend and legal adviser of the widow 

° ' ., '.. and orphan of that virtuous patriot. 1 thought 

no earthly advantage from it, but an injury it certain, that he must have had in his hands, 

;also. For this, I repeat, no 'One blames the .'and left among his papers, a copy of this will, 

gentleman's father; he was a lawyer, and Ir- and Earning, more latterly, that the collateral 

vine was his client. heirs-the children of one of the brothers-were 

T , , r J , . ... r . generally and firmlv 01 opinion, that by that 

I would not refer to this malicious false- ^, ;1> the estates W0 ; e t0 g0 to them , in caS8 Q f 

hood of Judas's, in charging my wife with the death of your present wife, without issue, 
ingratitude to his father, but that he intended, and seeing the extraordinary course you had ta- 
in making it, to lay a foundation for his sub- ^ en ' a f g these ^f?Y» ft6r ^ intermarriage, 
I * , , -i. "i.i r I carefully searched a large portion of those pa- 

sequent base attempts to disturb the peace of pers to find guch a copv * of K it existed . If one 

my m'md. it will be recollected, that the should be produced, it could hardly be matter 

malignant being, believing that he could im- of astonishment, if it never comes from that 

press the world with an opinion that my wife q^ rter < it is considered that at *He very 

f , •, a J time you filed the bill m the name of May s 

had been over-reached in her domestic ar- heir8 / and for some years before and afterward?, 

rangements with her husband, especially the you had, as. you declare, unrestrained access to 

descendants of Gen. Todd, a part of whom my father's papers." 

he hoped to enlist as partisans, invented and ' Here, reader, this fellow, after telling the 
propagated an infamous falsehood, in stating falsehood and -being advertised for telling it, 
that he had found, among his father's papers, acknowledges ' it — in doing which, he tells 
the last will and testament of Col. Todd, one other infamous falsehood, I know, and 
and, by it, Mrs. Wickliffe was only entitled another, as I believe. It is' false, that I ever 
to a life estate, the remainder being devised had unrestrained access to his father's pa- 
over to the heirs of Gen. Levi Todd. This, pers, or that I ever stated so. I had never 
the parson first circulated among the political had access to his papers but once, and that 
negro clique of Lexington, that he found well in the presence of the mother, until another 
disposed, not only to believe the falsehood, administrator, Robert Harrison, joined us, 
but to circulate it. It was soon buzzed and then in the presence .of both; and this is 
through the sinks and stews of the city, that I all the access I ever stated I had to the pa- 
was to be utterly ruined — that the heirs of pers; nor should I have had access then, but 



r: 52 ] 

at the special request of Harrison, who pro- 1 do not believe that any human kind of the 
fessed himself to be, as he was, incapable of name or blood of Todd, concocted the thought, 
examining them, to take from the gentleman's much less authorized the tale. I base this 
father as foul a charge as ever wasmade against opinion upon an intimate knowledge of Levi 
a professional man, and to save the slander- Todd, and of his children, or most of them, 
er's pocket from the payment of at least one and from never hearing one of them utter a 
thousand pounds. sentence of the kind; so far from it, Levi 

But, reader, this is the same Rev. Robert Todd was the guardian of my wife, and; as 
Judas Breckinridge, who, in his second libel, such, not only transacted all the business rel- 
denied that I ever had access to his father's ative to the estate, until after the marriage of 
papers. After quoting what I say of my visit the widow of his brother, during which time, 
to his mother's, and search for the papers rel- he caused her lands, to be entered, surveyed 
ative to Wood's suit, and my being permitted and patented, and when under an act of as- 
to search for them, and actually finding them, sembiy, a part of the lands of my wife were 
on page 23d of that libel, he says: sold, he became the purchaser, which, after 

"Ali this, 1 am authorised to say, from the his death,' his heirs sold with general war- 
highest authority, is pure fiction — an absolute ranty. 

fabrication. In a letter to me, dated March the ^ftef maturity of age, my wife sold a 



, 1841, my venerable parent, speaking of 

this particular matter, denies that you were on 



tract of land adjoining that, first bought by 



terms of intimacy . in 'my father's" house, and her uncle, to the late Andrew F. Price, which 
says in terms, 1 never gave him access to your Gen. Todd subsequently acquired from Price, 
precious father's papers in my life." j n exchange for other lands, and which lat- 

Vile wretch, after getting from his aged ter tract, the heirs of Gen, Todd have sold 
and paralytic mother, a statement which he and conveyed,, since his death, with general 
knew to be untrue— that is, that I never, in warranty; but besides these facts, the chil- 
all her life, was permitted access to his pre- dren, or part of them, have purchased real 
cious father's papers, when he has the des- estates of my wife, an*d again sold and. war- 
picable liar fastened upon him, gives to that ranted them at full prices for the fee-simple, 
mother's statement, the stamp of falsehood, To affect still farther the relations between 
by alleging that I had N from my own state- my wife and myself, the fiend,- on page 
ments, unrestrained access to his father's pa 72nd, of his third libel, introduces a garbled 
pers, and then insinuates, that as I had an in- extract from a bill in chancery, filed by Gen. 
terest in keeping Col. Todd's will out of Hardin, with whom I w T as, some thirty years 
view, it is no wonder he could not find it; since, an adjunct counsel, in a suit between 
and concludes by saying, the developments of the heirs of John Mayj and the heirs of John 
Providence are strange and unlooked for. — Tpdd, is of a discourteous expression 
Hypocrite; after .being caught in the most in the bill, in relation to my wife's mother. — 
despicable, malignant and low falsehood, As I had not brought the suit, and doubted 
how dare he to talk of God's Providence, whether I ever, in my life, read the bill, 
and cant about its developments? having only been' requested by Gen. Hardin, 

I heard a story, not long since, that one of my relation, to superintend the suit in the 
the gentleman's certificate men took up his Fayette Court, he not being a regular atten- 
pen to write a fraternal and brotherly letter dant on that court, I was wholly at a loss to 
to this pious soaled Judas, and a mysterious imagine how a disrespectful expression could 
Providence, in its strange- developments, exist in the bill, as both Haidin and myself 
gave him a hloto on the head that knocked had the greatest veneration for the memory of 
writing out of it, and the pen out of his fin- Col. John Todd, and the kindest feelings to- 
gers; so that perhaps, to this day, Judas has wards, not only his widow and heir, but eve- 
not received the epistle, if he ever receives it. ry member of his brother's family — indeed, 
I know nothing about the tale that Judas Hardin's wife was a near relation of the chil- 
tells about the children of Gen. Levi Todd dren of Levi Todd. I knew Hardin to have 
claiming, as devisees, the fee-simpie in my been' a gentleman of general urbanity, and 
wife's estate: but I believe it to be utterly un- not to have been excelled by any of his co- 
true, and invented by the slanderer, to cause temporaries in the proprieties of the profes- 
enmity between my wife and her relatives, sion. On seeing the extract, 1 hastened to 



I 53 j 



the. Clerk's Office and examined the bill ve- 
ry carefully, to see if it had any marks on it, 
going to show that I had ever read the bill. — 
I couid find none; nor do I know who drafted 
the bill, but think, from the hand-writing,' 
that it was written by the complainant. John 
L May, then a youth, but since dead. The 
little harshness, I am sure, escaped both the 
eye of Hardin and myself, or it would have 
been erased. It was-a small affair, and, no 
doubt, treated as such by, the mother of my 
■wife, who, if she noticed it, was told that it 
was not the act of. myself or General Har- 
din, by her relative, Gen. Bodley, the clerk 
of the court, with whom May filed the bill. 
May, poor fellow, has .passed to an early 
grave. He, I presume,- wrote the words, that 
the "will was not recorded, but clandestinely 
suppressed," without regarding the full effect 
of them, and on being made sensible' of the 
impropriety, would, with the feelings of a 
high-minded, honorable youth, have legretted 
and corrected them. The death of George 
May, of Virginia, the material witness for 
John May's heirs, and the rejection of his 
deposition, as not taken on proper notice, 
ended the suit, where it would have slept but 
for this parson Pry. 

Equally false -is the statement made by the 
gentleman, that I prosecuted the suit with the 
greatest rigor because of my hatred to Henry 
Clay. This creature has .been endeavoring, 
from the beginning, to make others parties 
with him by a free use of their names; and 
has, more particularly, again and again refer- 
red to Mr. Clay, so that he might not only 
have the weight of his name, but make the 
impression that Mr. Clay was his abettor, 
and making common cause with him in his 
controversy w T ith me. For the present, I 
will say nothing more of the free use of, and 
frequent allusion to Mr. Clay's name by the 
reverend slanderer, than to say, as I do, that 
any statement made by him, that at the time 
of the pending of the suit of May's and 
Todd's heirs, that my relations were other- 
wise than friendly with Mr. Clay, is untrue, 
and that, of course, his attempt to prove or 
say that I was governed by unfriendly motives 
towards either the client or counsel, is a base 
and malignant fabrication. 

But this pious creature, after all his lying 
and abuse, heaped upon me, about frauds 
committed on my wife and her collaterals, 
the heirs of Levi Todd, fearing that it would 



not be well received by Levi Todd's chil- 
dren, or, in the slightest degree, mar the con- 
jugal happiness of my wife and myself, tries 
a new expedient to disturb her happiness — 
that is, instead of slandering her living hus- 
band, who was able to hurl back his false- 
hoods upon him, to slander her dead son. — 
After a tissue of falsehoods, spun out to an 
unreasonable length, about my settlement 
upon my ■ wife, to screen himself from the 
base falsehoods in his second libel, uttered 
about finding the will of John Todd among 
his faiher's papers, and making a discovery 
that Levi Todd's heirs were immensely rich, 
and that I was evidently ruined and bankrupt 
by my marriage with my wife, in page 76. 
he breaks out as followeth: 

"But, sir, if it be true, to use a favorite mode 
of expression by you, I have been informed, and 
if I am mistaken, the gentleman can explain, 
that this extraordinary settlement was the result 
of an .extraordinary impression on her mind, 
that her estate was greatly involved, if not bank- 
rupt on your marriage — that there were im- 
mense liabilities hanging over it, for which you 
had become liable by the marriage; and that you 
were harrassed, and in danger of great losses by 
reason of its unforeseen embarrassments. If any 
thing of this kind existed, which, as I cannot 
positively know, I' do not assert, it is easily to 
see what a coloring it gives 'to the whole trans- 
action. Moreover, sir, if, amongst those slaves, 
there was a fine lad, who, though held in bond- 
age, was in reality nearly white, and who had 
always been treated as the child of a friend, rath- 
er than as a slave — if it is true that this boy was, 
though illegitimate, the acknowledged son of 
the unquestionable male heir of these great es- 
tates, and that his father did, in his last sick- 
ness, what he thought necessary to secure the 
future freedom and respectability of the child — 
if the last descendant of the original proprietor, 
by marriage, became your slave, then, indeed, it 
is ]e?s difficult to read the mystery of these re- 
markable deeds, and to comprehend how the fee 
of a vast estate, and the dower of one still great- 
er, might be paid as the price of the liberty of 
a handful of bondsmen. 1 ' 

That the reader may fully understand the 
villainous assault here made upon the happi- 
ness of an aged mother, who had been de- 
prived of her father, when a few months old, 
i— before she could lisp his name, and who, 
after losing her father, who fell fighting for 
his country, was left .exposed to all the perils 
and dangers attendant upon her condition, 
without a father, and no protector except a 
weeping mother, and the kind and poor in- 
habitants of the feeble fort in which she was 
born, but was not deserted by a kind Provi- 



t » J 

-dence that gave her protection in the kindest tian in the Presbyterian Church, in the place 
sympathies of the people of the fort, who, that.gave her birth, if she has, or ever had 
though stricken to the earth by the dreadful an enemy, I never knew or heard of it. — 
slaughter of the fathers, husbands and broth- Her collateral relations were to her as broth- 
•ers of the survivors, cherished her as the child ers and sisters, she to them, as a sister; and 
of all. She had not, however, attained her such had been her inoffensiveness and kind- 
full age before she became a mother, and a ness to her neighbors, poor and ridhj that I 
widow, with an only child to bear his father's believe no solitary female, from helpless 
name to posterity. This child she loved and childhood until the verge of three score and 
nurtured until he attained manhood, in all the ten, ever had more of the kind sympathies of 
manly and so.cial virtues. She taught him all who knew her, than her whom the devil 
^always to remember and'love the descendants has instigated and stirred up the reverend 
of the primitive settleis of Lexington, whose impostor to mortify, and make weep afresh 
parents had shown such kindness to her. — over the injured memory of her only child. 
She, both by precept and example, inspired Here the brute has at last succeeded. He 
him with a veneration for religion, and. res- has drawn tears — bitter tears, from the moth- 
pect for its clergy. Nor had she spared her er of the slandered youth, which lit has heard 
means in bestowing upon him a classical ed- of with ' fiendish pleasure. Poor, miserable 
ucation. His person was tall and handsome devil! For a devil sure he must be, that de- 
— his manners bland, with an amiable tern- lights in the tears of an unoffending female, 
per. His unassuming worth made him a He has- told a lie on a gallant youth, that he 
favorite with the aged as well as the -young, would have no more uttered, than he would 
who knew him; but, above all, was he. en- have seized the forked lightning, had not that 
dearedto his mother by. his exemplary filial youth been consigned to the earth. ' Yes- 
piety. He was the object of her affection — one glance from his manly eye — one frown 
her hope and pride. She felicitated herself from his noble brow, would freeze the das- 
that her desolation was about to pass away, tardly heart of the miscreant Judas. But he 
when this youth was snatched by death from is dead, and the Hyena has opened his grave, 
her bosom, and that mother again left deso- My countrymen, the facts are before you. 
late,- whose only relief was to weep and Ought any honest man to allow shelter to 
mourn, and whose only trust was in God, that such a creature? And does it not crucify 
her son, whom she believed she had restored the Saviour afresh, for such a miscreant to 
to him as pure as she had received him from minister in his name? And yet Judas is 
his Maker, had been, by a wise and inscruta- still one of the twelve, going out and com- 
ble Providence, taken from her, and fiom ing in, and ministering in* the name of ihe 
this to another and a better world. More Lord. But, christians, see what havoc his 
than twenty years since, the green sod had ministry is playing with the churches. One 
covered his grave, and his mother had ceased such profligate, ministering in the church of 
to weep for him, when this vile slanderer aim- Christ, will cause more to reject the Saviour, 
ed his deadliest shaft at her heart. She had than all the Humes and Paines that have 
formed new connexions, and her affections openly avowed their infidelity.' Who can 
had found new objects to rest upon. In this desire to be a christian with such a heart and 
condition she was happy. If for an instant tongue as Judas has? And wh.o w T ill leave a 
her mind run ' back to delightful moments, world of strife, and seek peace through reli- 
when her own darling son beguiled ■"he hours gion, if such salamanders are the high priests, 
of her widowhood — if her thoughts brought to profane religion and ihe name of the liv- 
back to her the manly form, the delightful ing God? Let the voices of the sixty-thou- 
and joyous sallies of his boyhood — she con- sand praying christians who have been ex- 
soled herself that her child had left her, be- pelled from the Presbyterian Church, and 
loved by all, and without a stain on his mor- driven from the- altars, at the instigation of 
als; and that God had given her children in Judas and not his partisans, answer — not 
his stead, and friends still to love. Thus the Judases of that venerable church, that 
could she say — "God is kind and merceiful. once was a unit with Christ its head. Let 
I am happy, and cease to weep." the down-trodden Presbyterians, by Presby- 

For nearly forty years, a professing chris- terians, be heard, as in the day of retribution 



t 55 ] 



they will be, and the fate of Judas is scaled. 

But my business is with the Freemen of 
Fayette, and the subject, the slander of Judas 
upon the memory of my wife's son. Her 
peace, it is my duty to defend; but as her son 
has left no brother or relatives to defend- his 
memory by chastising the unfeeling catiff, 
that to destroy the repose of the mother, has 
invented a base slander on her child, I can 
only lay bare the motives of the slanderer, 
and ask for her sympathy, and protection 
from my country, and the scorn and abhor- 
rence of honest men for the slanderer. Per- 
sonally,. I can state nothing, except to do as 
I have done, again and again, to pronounce 
Judas guilty of .wilful and corrupt falsehood, 
in his statement that my wife ever knew, 
much less recognised the boy, Alfred, as a 
child of her son, or ever placed him upon 
any other footing than her other slaves; and 
that that consideration, or any other than the 
free will and desire. of my wife, and that of 
my own, ever actuated- her or myself in dis- 
posing of our .property as we have done. — 
Indeed, until very lately, so little did I -know 
or care who was the father of the boy, or 
how mulatto negroes or black negroes be- 
came the property of my wife, that I neither 
knew the history of the boy, Alfred, or of 
Milly, his mother. My wife,. I knew, held 
two mulatto women, and, I think, two mu 
latto boys, but whether by purchase or de- 
scent, I think I never heard, until Judas's 
mullatto story and falsehood was published 
upon young Russell's memory. I have, to 
be sure, now to rely upon negro history, as 
well as the information of the whites, who 
had some acquaintance with Milly and Al- 
fred. 

From all T can learn, Alfred was born 
about the latter end of 1817, or beginning 
of 1818, and his mother then stated that he 
was the child of a bright mulatto man, the 
property of Major Seaberry, who had taken 
him to Missouri— that Milly, the mother, 
was the slave of a relation of Mrs. Wickliffe, 
by the name of Hawkins; but, that during 
the long and distressing illness of Mrs. 
Wickliffe's mother, Milly nursed her, and 
evinced such kindness and affectionate sym- 
pathy for her, that Mrs. Irvine, the mother 
of Mrs. Wickliffe, knowing that she intend- 
ed to free her own slaves, asked her daugh- 
ter to buy Milly, and to free her when she 
freed the other slaves — that Mr. Hawkins, 



failing about that time, the woman, (Milly,) 
and her boy- child passed into the hands of 
his creditors, or their agent, who extorted 
from Mrs. Wickliffe- — whose filial piety was- 
excited to fulfil the promise to her mother — • 
the enormous sum of twelve hundred dollars 
for Milly and her boy-child; and that the 
purchase was effected a very short time be-" 
fore my marriage. I also find, that Mr. 
Russell was bom in the year 1800— that at 
sixteen he left Kentucky for Princeton Col- 
lege, and did not return until the year 1819, 
when the boy, Alfred, must have been about 
two years old — that Milly was considered 
like other mulattoes, who, like Judas him- 
self, preferred the white to the black subject, 
in her amours — that Judas himself, was, at 
the time of Miss Milly's misfortune, run- 
ning .at large about Lexington, as well as 
many other libertines, any and all of whom 
were as likely to admire Miss Milly, as a poor 
boy of sixteen; and unless my information 
mislead, the boy could plead an alibi, which 
others could, not. However, I do not wish to 
be understood as intimating that I believe 
that Judas had any hand in siring the boy, 
Alfred. God forbid that I should have sent 
any of his stock to Liberia. I am a friend 
to the colony, and wish it peace and . pros- 
perity, which it could never have, if such 
spirits as Judas shall grow there. Besides, 
the facts 1 are against his paternity. Alfred 
was a well-behaved,' peaceable boy, and 
had none of Judas' s impudence and dis* 
position to wrangle. ■ When Monrovia 
was attacked, he fought in her defence 
most bravely. He stood the powder and 
shot of the enemy, but if he • had been 
Judas 's, I think he would have hid himself, as 
Judas did from Flournoy. He is now, I am 
informed, a respectable. Methodist divine, and! 
a perfect gentleman in his manners. Judas 
is the reverse of all this. Yet, I do not pre- 
tend to say that Judas is a stranger to Miss 
Milly, Alfred's mother. She was certainly 
my wife's chamber-maid when he visited my 
house, and, no doubt, made up his bed, and 
did other things about the room while he was 
in it> and he, no doubt, had- ample opportu- 
nity to pump the secret out of her, who was 
sire to her son, and Miss Milly, to elevate 
herself in the- estimation of the parson, no 
doubt, vouched some handsome youth, instead 
of a slave, to the inquisitive parson; and, as 
young Russell was among the most handsome 



t w 1 



LrA manly of his day, she, if for no other 
reason but to please the parson, might tell 
him he was the lover. This would convince 
the parson that she was the favorite of as 
handsome a lover .as he himself could ever 
have been. If, however, the parson did not 
get his mulatto tale from Milly herself, he 
has vouched the fact from incompetent evi- 
dence 1 — as the lawyers say, not the best evi- 
dence the case admits of; but as a witness, 
when he gives evidence, is bound to tell the 
whole truth, I hold him bound to give up his 
author, unless Milly is,- (as I suppose,) the 
author. Should she be the author, I do not 
ask him to say so, upon the principle that no 
man is bound to sfive evidence against him- 
self. To say the least of Judas, he is a ve- 
ry imprudent man, and a most incorrigible 
fool, in bringing out this negro slander. 

You have not forgotten, fellow-citizens, 
when, at the Court House, in October, 1840, 
he charged me with being in favor of amal- 
gamation between the white and black races, 
with what a shake of his frame and nod of 
his head, he declared that he did not admire 
my taste! — that for /lis part, he preferred the 
white; nor have you forgotten that I, in re- 
ply, told him that men acquired their prefer- 
ences by practice in such things; and that, he 
had shown himself to be too knowing, and, 
for a parson, too competent a judge between 
the white and black subjects; and you cannot 
have failed to observe, how., often I have re- 
buked him about boasting about his courage 
and powers as a duellist, by telling him, that 
on the principle that a' rope should never be 
mentioned where there had been any hang- 
ing, he should say nothing about a duel; yet 
he will still talk about duels, and, to "cap 
the climax" of imprudence, the poor fool has 
dug from the very grave, a negro slander.' — 
Those whom God wills to destroy, he makes 
mad. I am told the ancient and topographi- 
cal name of the farm that Judas plundered 
his aunt of, was "Dog Fennell," and that of 
all the places upon earth, it was the worst for 
mulatto stories. Indeed, they say that in 
the town of Dog Fennell, and in its vicin- 
ity, the negro women all. or a majority of 
them, bred mulattoes, while the gentleman 
was resident and lord proprietor cf Dog 
Fennell — now called by its proprietor, 
Breadalbane. It is also said, that the gen- 
tleman, then and there, held in possession, 
amongst his slaves that he had not gambled 



off, a beautiful mulatto, called Louisa, thai 
added to a rich skin of silky, shining yellow, 
resembling the color of California gold, a 
heaving bosom, and lips, a little too thick, to 
be sure, but pouting most amorously. It so 
befel the lovely Louisa, as it did Miss Milly, 
that she too had a lovely child; and, to use 
the parson's description of Milly 5 s boy, "al- 
most white;'' — yes, about the color of an In- 
dian summer's sun; but the poor thing, be- 
fore it ever could lisp its father's name, was 
burnt to death, and Louisa, hapless maid 
and mother, conceived and bore another, just 
as like the first as one black-eyed pea is like 
another; but it, too; never lisped its father's 
name. 

Poor Russell, if Judas' lie not, took care 
of his mulatto; and, boy as'he was, thought 
of him in the' last throbs of life. Not so 
with the paramour of Dog Fennell. His 
mulatto breed is left to die, or is given up to 
the flames; and except the never sleeping eye 
of God has marked the deed, none but Loui- 
sa and her seducer can divulge the secret his- 
tory of Louisa and her ill-fated babes. I 
think the command of the Saviour to his dis- 
ciples is. "go preach the gospel to all the 
world, begining at Jerusalem,"— that is, in 
other words, begin at home, and then go 
abroad. Now I maintain that Judas has 
broken this commandment in this, that be- 
fore he came to my house, preaching down 
mulatto crimes* and causing my wife to shed 
tears over the grave of her son, he should 
have begun at Dog Fennell, and caused the 
guilty wretch who seduced Louisa and left 
his own children neglected and to die, to shed 
briney tears over their graves, until he 
sweated, as it were, great drops of blood. — • 
As he has turned mulatto biographer, I hope 
he will be impartial, and tell the world, if he 
knows, who is the guiity wretch that seduced 
the lovely Louisa, and if Louisa never told 
him who was the father of her children. If 
not, she can yet do so, as I am told she was 
not sent with the remaining slaves of his fa- 
ther's, that the gamblers left Judas, when he 
made the vast sacrifice he so much boasts 
about, for conscience sake, in his shipment to 
Liberia. No, fellow-citizens, I am inform- 
ed she is still a lady of distinction, and in 
this good city of ours; and if .she has not 
done so, will tell Judas who is the father of 
the mulattoes that lie in Breadalbane. 

Mr. Breckinridge no doubt has, whan 



heretofore in Lexington, seen Mrs. Louisa, 
and when he again visits Lexington, and be- 
fore h»j writes another book on mulatto breed- 
ing, will see her, and if he does not now 
know, he will inquire of Louisa, and give us 
the names of the living as well as of the 
dead, that have not heretofore done like the 
parson says he has do?ie — preferred the white 
— the pure, unmixed white. If he does not 
do so, he will only have effected little to add 
to his fame as Boccanegra, or black-mouthed 
historian. He has, to be sure, drawn tears 
from an old woman, at the thought, that even 
the purity of the morals of her dead child 
shall, a quarter of a century after he has 
slept in the silent grave — almost forgotten by 
all but herself — be suspected. If he will 
give us the history of the lassie of Breadal- 
bane; by whose neglect it washer lovely babes 
were suffered to perish-— what a debt will he 
not have on the world, for exposing to its 
view, naked, and without a cloak, so great a 
monster! Let us, then, before we say more 
on the merits and demerits of this negro his- 
torian, wait for the forthcoming of another 
book. 

I have said too much, and will cease to 
nauseate the reader farther, in pursuing Judas 
through his vile and detestable falsehoods 
on myself, except in a single case. As I 
have before remarked, it is most obvious that 
the gentleman, being conscious that he has 
no character that entitles him either to the 
notice or credit of a gentleman, for any thing 
that he can say or write, has, from the com- 
mencement of his controversy with me, en- 
deavored to draw others into his quarrels. — 
For instance — his church, his mother, his 
brothers, his certifying brother-in-law, 
Davy Castleman, Mr. Clay, and others, 
too numerous to be named. But on none 
he seems to have acted with more succes?, 
than Ex-Chief Justice Robertson- — as far, at 
least, as I can judge of that gentleman's con- 
duct, such is the fact. In my speech, in 1840, 
I had, as a mere matter of fact, stated that I 
had argued the case of Ormsby and Breckin- 
ridge, to oblige the reverend slanderer, at a 
time when my health and engagements ren- 
dered it extremely onerous for me to do so. 
In page 24 of Judas's second libel, he 
admits that the records show that I ar- 
gued the case of Ormsby and Breckinridge, 
assisted by Chinn and Judge Woolley, on 
"whose brief he says you (that is myself) ar- 
il 



gued the cause: and yet in page 4Gofsaid libel* 
in a strain of the grossest billingsgate, he pro- 
ceeds to say: 

"That the proof on which I assert he (that is 
myself,) did not argue the cause at all (Ormsby 
and Breckinridge,) is the distinct recollection of 
every person connected with the case, with 
whom I have conversed in regard to this fact, 
and especially of the Hon. George Robertson, 
Chief Justice of the State of Kentucky, .who 
presided on the trial of the cause, and Richard 
H. Chinn, who closed the argument for us. 1 ' 

Before I proceed farther to lay before the 
reader Chief Justice Robertson's attitude, I 
wish him to notice, that Breckinridge here 
asserts, upon the information of all with 
whom he had conversed, and especially on 
the distinct recollection of the Hon. George 
Robertson, Chief Justice of Kentucky, that 
I did not argue the cause at all. Now this 
very same creature, on page 36 of his third 
libel, after endeavoring to quibble himself 
out of his falsehood, in stating that I had not 
argued the case at all, says — but upon a ve- 
ry careful attempt to arrive at the truth — 

"My own conviction is — first, that it is most 
probable that you did not appear in the cause at 
all, upon the final argument; and, secondly, if 
you appeared at all, it was not, as asserted by 
you, and intimated by Judge Woolley; but lo 
present, very briefly, an incidental and isolated 
point, to-wit: the effect of the mortgage of 1802, 
to which the suppressed bond was attached, 
which was given when Beall was confessedly 
sane, and which recites and confirms that of 
1801. The second conclusion, I reach upon 
these grounds: First — a vague and general im- 
pression upon my own mind, that 1 Was so in- 
formed, shortly after the final decree in the case. 
Secondly — an impression resting on the minds 
of several persons,, more or less connected with 
the cause, that this point in it, was suggested 
by you, and that you relied on it as conclusive, 
as indeed it was." 

Now can any man read these three state- 
ments of Judas's, and doubt that he himself 
is conscious that he is telling, and has told, 
wilful untruths? In his first statement, he 
states the case as it was— that the record 
showed I had argued the cause, and that I 
was assisted by Chinn and Woolley* and had 
relied on Woolley's brief for the facts; but 
he sees Robertson, and finds his memory at 
fault — knows that Judge Haggin, who con- 
cluded the cause for Ormsby, and sat out my 
argument, was dead, and Dana, the reporter, 
was dead, and Taylor, the sergeant, was 
dead, and that Chinn had left Frankfort be- 
fore I commenced my speech, and Woolley 
might have left the Court House; therefore, he 



t 58 ] 



concluded that he could lie on without detec- 
tion. He denies that I did argue it at all, 
and that on the distinct recollection of all 
with whom he had conversed, at all connect- 
ed with the cause. Well, lo! and behold, 
I prove him guilty of a wilful falsehood! — 
first, by Woolley, and then by Robertson, 
and Chinn, (if Woolley is to be' believed,) 
also contradicts him — -the note of the report- 
er contradicts him. But now, in, his third 
libel, he says he is about to be honest — 
thinks — may-be he believes or begins to be- 
lieve — that I did argue an abstract point! — 
And this impression is on his mind — that he 
heard I had done so, about the time the de- 
cree was rendered; and that he was further in- 
formed that the point — that the last deed 
confirmed the first deed — was first pressed 
by me, &c. &c. 

Here the man confesses that he had heard 
of my arguing the point of law, about the 
time of the decree, and such was the impres- 
sion of others connected with the cause. If 
this is the fact, how came he, when he thought 
I could not detect him, to assert that it was 
the distinct recollection of all with whom he 
had conversed, especially Chief Justice Rob- 
ertson, that I had not argued the cause at all? 
Yet, after this equivocation, he has the assu- 
rance to suppress the material statements and 
parts of Robertson's letter to me. He has 
the impudence to parade extracts, purporting 
to be from the Journal of the Senate, in one 
particular, grossly fraudulent and false, to 
show I had not left the Senate. But more of 
this hereafter. 

To a full view of the case of veracity be- 
tween Judas and myself, and to the 
countenance and support which he boasts, 
he has in his impudent attempt to brand me 
with falsehood, in saying that I argued the 
case of Ormsby against Breckinridge and 
others, I beg leave to state here, why, as I 
conceive it is, that I have been forced through 
the conduct of the late Chief Justice, not on- 
ly to notice Jadas a second time, but 
to expose a correspondence, at length, 
between the ex-Judge and myself, which I 
would gladly have spared the public the trou- 
ble of reading. 

As I have before stated, in the winter of 
of 1827-8, my health had failed me, under 
the great pressure and weight of business 1 
had been engaged in, from the first Monday 
in October, the time the Court of Appeals com- 



menced, until Judas returned to the State. 
The commencement of the Legislature, 
threw a vast accumulation of business 
on me at its meeting, and in prospect 
from the nature of the part I had to act in 
the Senate, at the same time that the Federal 
Court, the General Court, and the Court of 
Appeals had calls on my time, so that I was 
induced to say to Judas, that I could not 
possibly prepare for the argument of the case 
of Ormsby and Breckinridge, and, of course, 
must decline appearing in it. When I made 
this statement, no one doubted, T believe, ex- 
cept myself, that the aged and experienced 
Judges of the Court of Appeals would be 
continued in office. I hoped only this would 
be the case. From their great experience, 
I believed little could be gained by an argu- 
ment in the cause; and Breckinridge seemed 
willingly to consent to let me off from the 
argument, I told him that Judge Woolley, 
my partner, had made an ample brief, aided 
by my suggestions, but as the cause was of 
great importance, he must engage some expe- 
rienced counsel, to help in the argument. — * 
He, in a day or two, named Chinn as the as- 
sistant to be employed. I, of course, could 
not object, but assented, although I expect- 
ed him, on my first suggestion, to employ 
some older practitioner, Mr. Chinn not hav- 
ing theretofore practiced in the court, but was, 
as I well knew, both a good lawyer, and 
possessed talents. I think I had not before 
thought of him, yet the selection I thought 
good, and promised to aid Mr. Chinn and 
Woolley with such suggestions as I could 
make, before the trial came on. So Mr. 
Breckinridge and myself separated, until af- 
ter the Senate rejected the nominations of the 
old Judges, Owsley and Mills, and they were 
succeeded by two gentlemen, Robertson and 
Underwood, neither of whom, as I believe, 
had ever practiced in the Court of Appeals. 
Of Judge Robertson's qualifications I knew 
nothing, and had voted for his confirmation, 
upon the impression on my mind, that he 
was not qualified for the office, but could be- 
come so. Of Mr. Underwood 1 knew more, 
he having studied law with me. His reputa- 
tion as a lawyer in the Circuit Courts was 
high; but I knew he wanted experience in the 
office he was about to fill. We had failed 
— totally failed, to fill the court with a third 
judge, and it became obvious that if the case 
of Breckinridge and Ormsby were tried at 



[ 5® J 



that session, that it must be tried by the two 
Judges, who never before tried a cause. In 
this situation of his case, Judas being, as I 
think, then unwell, sent for Woolley, and as 
Woolley informed me, insisted that I should 
argue his case. On receiving this message, 
I had an interview with Judas when, 
he appeared utterly averse to risking the cause 
with the "two young lawyers" as he called 
them, before two young and inexperienced 
Judges, remarking to me, that I was bound 
for Lee's debt, and he had no resource to 
raise that, but from the claim on Ormsby, or 
the slaves and land that had been distributed, 
and which he could not consent to resort to, 
if it were possible to do otherwise. He spoke 
also of the effect the decree, if affirmed, 
would have on his father's reputation. On 
this strong appeal to me, I told him that I 
would argue his cause. I had afterwards an 
interview with Chinn and Woolley, and both 
expressed a wish that I would argue the case, 
and each declared a readiness to withdraw. 
I think I told them that it would not be ne- 
cessary for them to do so, that the Judges of- 
ten relaxed the rule as to the number of coun- 
sel to argue on each side, and that they 
■would, no doubt, do it in that instance, if ne- 
cessary; but I think I told them it was not 
necessary, as there were several distinct in- 
terests to be represented, and that my brother 
Charles was a party, and entitled to counsel. 
Of this I may be mistaken, as Judge Wool- 
ley omits it in his letter. On the next meet- 
ing of the Court, Woolley and Chinn in- 
formed me that the Court had agreed to hear 
me in the conclusion of the case for Breck- 
inridge. The arrangement of the argument, 
as I understood it, was, that Woolley was to 
open it for the appellants — that Crittenden 
should reply to him for the appellee, Ormsby 
— that Chinn should reply to him, and Hag- 
gin to answer him, when I was to be notified 
and close the cause for the appellants, Wool- 
ley and Chinn agreeing to give me at each 
night, the points urged, by counsel on each 
day. This was done; and although I remain- 
ed in my seat in the Senate, from Thursday 
until about twelve o'clock on Monday, I felt, 
from the notes given me by Woolley and 
Chinn, and my knowledge of the cause oth- 
erwise, fully competent to argue the cause i 
beneficially for the appelants. I did not 
hear a single speech in the cause, nor did I 
read the papers through, but was so correctly 



informed of what was said, that L had no dif- 
ficulty in applying my remarks and law, to 
the arguments or points urged by the adverse 
counsel. When the sergeant came for me, I 
got the. promise of the leading Senators, 
to take up no important cases in my ab- 
sence, and the journals show that nothing of 
importance was transacted by the Senate on 
that day. A few local cases, I think five in 
number, all divorce cases, were acted upon, 
after I left — the Senate, (as I understood,) 
adjourned when they came to the Attornies 
bill, in the order of the day. That bill, in- 
volving a constitutional question, the Senate 
wished to hear me on it. Judas stated most 
falsely, that that bill passed on Monday, the 
day I argued the case of Breckinridge and 
Ormsby. See the Clerk's certificate on this 
point: 

"I state, that after R Wickliffe's name ap- 
pears on the Journal of the Senate, of the 19th 
day of January, 1828, for the last time, the fol- 
lowing bills only appear to have been taken up 
and acted upon during- the day, to-wit: "A bill 
to divorce Maria Kepheart from her husband, 
Simon Kepheart," — "An act to divorce Eliza- 
beth Bracken" — "An act to divorce Eliza Bal- 
lard, frem her husband, Evan Ballard''- — An act 
to divorce Susannah Johnson from her husband, 
Hiram Johnson" — "An act for the divorce of 
Nancy Bryant,'' — and "An act to divorce Eliza 
Young." And then the Senate adjourned. 

L. B. RHOTON. 

March 2, 1843. 

When I entered the Court room, I knew 
Mr. Haggin had spoken last, and before 
I commenced, as I had no notes of his 
remarks, I asked him if he had urged any 
new matter, to apprize me of it. Mr. Crit- 
tenden w 7 as in Court, as was also, Judge 
Woolley and Haggin. But my impression 
w r as, and still is, that Chinn made his speech, 
either the Saturday or Friday before I spoke, 
(if I spoke on Monday, as I believe I did,) 
and then went home — at least, I have not the 
slightest recollection of seeing him, nor did 
Crittenden remain in the Court, but Haggin 
did, the whole time of my speech, and on 
one or two occasions, corrected my statements 
of the facts proven in the cause. I began 
late, Haggin having occupied a part of the 
morning with his speech. The Court ad- 
journed for dinner, after I had progressed 
about an hour. And here I take leave to de- 
clare, that Judge Robertson is mistaken, and 
utterly misstates what I said to him, as to 
my argument. I never did tell him that I 



[ po j 



only argued one point, and that was, wheth- 
er the mortgage of 1802 was a simple con- 
firmation or a new gran', of the property re- 
ferred to in the mortgage of 1801. So far 
from it, I should be ashamed to acknowledge 
that I deemed that point tenable in the cause, 
although it was the point on which the cause 
w r as saved, owing, as I believe, solely to the 
want of experience in the Judges; for howev- 
er tenable the point might have been made 
by proper pleading, it could not legally arise 
in the case. The mortgage of 1802, 1 think, 
was not alleged or made a profert of, by ei- 
ther party— certainly not by Breckinridge's 
administrators. My recollection is, that 
there was no legal copy of the mortgage of 
1802, in the cause, and that the only evi- 
dence of its existence, was found in a trans- 
cript of a record from the Federal Court, of 
a cause in which Harris, a witness, had de- 
posed, who was then dead. To let in his 
testimony, the paper found being but a copy 
of a copy, and not being referred to by the 
pleading of either party — that a paper so filed 
is no evidence in a cause, had been repeated- 
ly decided by .that court, and is the every 
day's practice of the court since. And to 
prove that I do not misstate the practice of 
the court, I refer the reader to their decision 
in the case of Roberts and Lewis, 3d Mon- 
roe, 410. It is true, that I did refer to the 
paper of April, 1802, as proving a re-grant, 
and that it was an acknowledgement of Beall, 
of the mortgage of 1801; but I deny that I 
placed my sole reliance on the point. I 
think I threw it out, as lawyers often do, to 
make weight; the greater part of my argu- 
ment being devoted to the question, whether 
Ormsby stood in a condition to raise the ques- 
tions of either insanity or the want of con- 
sideration. Upon that point, I had then no 
doubt, nor have I now, that the law and the 
justice of the case was with Breckinridge. 
Breckinridge had, as far back as 1821 or, 22, 
closed the mortgage of 1801, and had sold 
the mortgaged property under the decree, 
when Ormsby became a purchaser, and with 
a perfect knowledge of his rights, gave his 
notes for payment, taking the credits allowed 
by the decree, and had attempted, both as an 
under-purchasei, and in the name of Beall, 
to reverse the decree of foreclosure. He 
had done more. He had attempted to set 
aside the sale, and been over-ruled, and the 
sales confirmed. After thus delaying and 



hindering Breckinridge, he conveyed away 
his property to his brother. In this condition, 
I laboured to convince the Judges he could 
not be heard, but was, in law and equity, 
bound to pay off the judgments at law. — 
The Judges, however, instead of stopping 
the cause here, either passed the point by, or 
overruled it, and seem to have decided the 
cause, mainly on the copy of a copy, of a 
deed of 1802, that was not even evidence in 
the cause; so that the court, in my opinion, 
decided right, but for a wrong reason. 

Here I wish the reader to clearly under- 
stand, that the case of Ormsby and Breck- 
inridge, is not the case of Breckinridge against 
Samuel Beall. devisee of Walter Beall, 
where I was the innocent instrument in ruin- 
ing Beall's devisee, for which I expressed my 
regret. It was after I got a sight of the con- 
tract of March, 1798, in which John Breck, 
inridge binds himself to take the 600 acres, 
at the mouth of Drenning's Lick Creek, 
without a recourse on Beall, in any event 
Whatever, and after Beall became insane, 
and he had obtained a patent for the land, un- 
der pretence that the land was lost, obtained 
from Beall an acknowledgement, that he 
owed him a £1000, that I expressed my 
profound regret, that I had not seen that 
bond in time to have saved Samuel Beall 
from ruin; and sincerely do I still regret that 
I did not get hold of it in time. Judas has 
constantly endeavored to keep out of view 
the suit I referred to, that he might play off 
his falsehood upon the reader, when he says 
the Fayette Circuit Court, and Court of Ap- 
peals decided on full advisement, that Beall's 
answer was false. The certificate A, of the 
Clerk of Fayette, shows that no depositions 
were taken in the case, to prove Walter Be- 
all insane; nor w T as there an answer, except 
that of Samuel Beall; but the bill, as to all 
the other defendants, w 7 as taken for confessed. 
Moreover, the bill in that case did not even 
refer to the bond of 1798; nor is it true, that 
at the time, and before the interlocutory and 
final decree in that case, and the consequent 
ruin of Samuel Beall, that either Cabell 
Breckinridge or myself ever had or could lay 
hands on the bond, nor did Judas himself, as 
I verily believe, ever permit it to be seen un- 
til it was forced from his lawyer, in the case 
of Ormsby and Breckinridge, in the Jefferson 
Circuit Court. The following certificate 
will also verify this fact; 



f m j 



I, Harry I. Bodley, Clerk of tlic Fayette Cir- 
cuit Court, do certify that 1 have examined the 
bill in the case of Breckinridge's administrators, 
vs. Beall's heirs, &c, and, that said bill makes 
no exhibit, except Beall's mortgage to Breckin- 
ridge, and VV. Beall's mortgage to S. Beall's ex- 
ecutors; the latter of which, I do not find among 
the papers of Breckinridge's vs. Beall's, &c. 

H. 1. BODLEY, 

March, 1843. 

As ex-Judge Robertson has permitted the 
slanderer to publish a garbled statement of 
lis letter to me, so as to involve him and my- 
elf in a point of veracity, without notice, 
Ithough very prompt to correct me, for what 
ne contends was a misrepresentation of his 
conversation with me, I publish the Judge's 
w 7 hole letter, and my reply to it, which, when 
he was publishing, I contend, as a candid 
and honorable man, he was bound to have 
published. I certainly had no wish to either 
differ with the Judge, or to misunderstand 
him. He had been vouched by a slanderer, 
for a falsehood, and it was his business, not 
mine, to clear himself of it, either by a writ- 
ten denial, published, as the slanderer had 
propagated his, or in such other ways as he 
preferred. Instead, however, of doing this, 
he meets with Judge Woolley, and tells him 
that he had not told Mr. Breckinridge, that I 
had not argued the case, and that he had not 
authorized him (Breckinridge) to publish that 
he had told him so. This was not what I 
intended to accept from the Judge. He, no 
doubt, expected 1 would accept it, but he was 
responsible when he was vouched for a false- 
hood, for a different disavowal; and I did not in- 
tend to take his statements to Judge Woolley, 
as such disavowal. Bat happening in the 
Clerk's office, as my letter explains, the 
the Judge and not myself broached the subject, 
when he did, in the most unequivocal man- 
ner, declare that he had not told Breckin- 
ridge that I had not argued the case of Orms- 
by and Breckinridge, and that his reference 
to him was unauthorized by him. He de- 
clared that he had only given to Mr. Breck- 
inridge his negative of recollection, saying 
to me, "that I do not now recollect any par- 
ticular suit you ever argued, although you 
have argued many before me. I do not re- 
collect who argued the cause, except Wool- 
ley, and should not recollect that he did, I 
presume, but it was the first cause I ever heard 
him argue." On Mr. Breckinridge telling 
him that Chinn had argued it, he said he 
thought he recollected Chinn had argued it 



also, but who else argued it, he could not re- 
collect. 

While I was far from being satisfied with 
the explanations given by Judge Robertson,. 
I left him under the hope, that his error, in 
holding a palaver with an avowed slanderer, 
about rules of courts, and other matters to 
involve him in question of veracity with a 
member of the bar, the oldest in the practice, 
and whose relations towards him had been 
such as deserved better treatment. Yet, as 
I knew the intrusive and impudent habits of 
Breckinridge, I hoped that the Judge certain- 
ly could not desire a controversy with me, 
and, therefore, in my publication, simply dis- 
missed the slander, circulated on the authori- 
ty of the Judge, by saying that Judge Rob- 
ertson authorized me to say, that Mr. Breck- 
inridge's reference to him, to sustain the slan- 
der, was gratuitous, and I referred the reader 
to the Judge himself, to establish the falsity 
of the statement, that he had said that I had 
not argued the case of Ormsby and Breckin- 
ridge. This, I thought as little as the Judge 
could have expected; but after I had made 
the publication, I received a lecture from the 
Judge, upon the difference between his say- 
ing that Mr. Breckinridge was not author- 
ised to refer to him. to prove I had not ar- 
gued the case, and his saying his reference to 
him was gratuitous. Judge Robertson says 
I was mistaken in supposing that Mr. Breck- 
inridge had said he was authorised by him, 
(Robertson,) to say I had not argued the case. 
Breekinridge says: 

"I charge, on the distinct recollection of all 
I have conversed with, particularly Chief Jus- 
tice Robertson, that you did not argue the cause 
at ail." 

And yet Judge Robertson says Breckin- 
ridge did not say he (Robertson) authorised 
him to say I had not argued the cause. As 
Judge of the Court of Appeals, he might al- 
ter language by a decision of that Court, 
but if he can make any sensible man say 
that when Breckinridge asserted the fact, 
from a conversation with him, (Robertson,) 
and upon his distinct recollection of the fact, 
that I did not argue the cause- — that Breck- 
inridge did not, in saying so, say he was au- 
thorised by him (Robertson) to make the 
statement, he is a better hand at splitting 
hairs than I think he is. 

Judge Robertson had a right to forget the 
truth, and no doubt did forget that I argued 



l m j 



the cause, as well as every other of the five 
■counsel who argued the cause, except Wool- 
ley. Judge Underwood declares to me, in a 
letter, that he cannot recollect a single law- 
yer that argued the cause. Mr. Crittenden, 
one of the attornies, informed me that he had 
totally forgotten who argued the Gause; and 
Woolley states that Chinn had even forgotten 
that he had himself argued the case. For 
Judge Robertson to say he did not recollect 
that I argued the case, thirteen years after it 
was argued, was, no doubt, proper; but for 
Judge Robertson to tell the slander-hound 
that he had a distinct recollection that 1 had 
not argued the cause, would not only be un- 
true, but devolve on me the necessity of prov- 
ing that it was not true. This I knew I 
could do, and should have proceeded to do, 
but for the express disavowal of the Judge 
to me, perso7iaUy, of the slander, as propa- 
gated by Breckinridge. His subsequent 
conduct, in permitting Breckinridge still to 
insist on his having so stated, and even in his 
last libel, on page 41 and 42, he says that 
the statements of the Judge, justified him in 
saying that I had not argued the cause. In 
Judge Robertson's letter to me, he disiinctly 
says, Mr. Breckinridge was not authorised to 
refer to him, to prove the fact he stated, and 
that he did not tell him I had not argued the 
cause. When a man says he states a thing 
on the recollection and statements of another, 
and that other denies that he authorised the 
statement, as made, and so stated to the per- 
son implicated, if that is not saying the state- 
ment is gratuitous, I know nothing of lan- 
guage. What a man does, in the name, or 
on the authority of another, is gratuitous, un- 
less authorised; and after Judge Robertson 
had said to Woolley, and said to me, that 
Breckinridge was not authorised to say what 
he did, I think I had a right to say he author- 
ised me to say the statement was gratuitous. 
However, as Robertson's own letter, and my 
answer, and Woolley's statement, shall all 
appear, I am perfectly willing that every hon- 
orable man shall decide whether I have or 
have not done the ex- Chief Justice ample 
justice, in any thing I have written. But, be 
this as it may, what honorable man can 
doubt that Judas has been guilty of false- 
hood. He says Robertson told him he had a 
distinct recollection, that I had not argued 
the case. Robertson says he did not tell him 
so, but only told him that he did not recoh 



lect that I had argued the cause, but that he 
recollected- Woolley and Chinn had argued 
the case. 

1 have said, for the present, what I deemed 
my duty say, in reply to my reverend slan- 
derer, and if there is one material fact, stated 
by the being, with a view to implicate my 
honor, that I have not disproved, I hope that 
some decent man will point it out; and if I 
have not, upon every point in issue between 
us, proved him to have basely and wilfully 
falsified, it has escaped my attention. I had 
no interest or wish to degrade the man, as he 
must be, even in his own eyes, and have, 
from the first assailment he made on me, felt 
deeply mortified, to be engaged in a contro- 
versy with a man totally destitute of moral 
principle, and, by nature and practice, a ruf- 
fian and blackguard— one that, under tho 
cloak of religion, impudently assumes the 
language of a bully and braggart, and equal- 
ly puts aside all the decencies of language 
and rules of veracity. The gross and vulgar 
language, and the low and despicable shifts 
which he has resorted to, to cover his crimes 
and falsehoods, have, I admit, drawn me in- 
to a temper, and forced me to use language, 
that are unsuited to both my years and hab- 
its of life. But the reader, I trust, on this 
head, will make forme the proper allowan- 
ces, when he recollects the base and foul 
language with which this Boca-Nigra has 
bespattered and insulted me, from the 
moment he commenced his assault upon me. 
until he closed his last most vulgar and fetid 
epistle of ninety pages. I know that my 
cotemporarios think I have done wrong in 
ever noticing the biped. In this, perhaps, 
they are right. In the conflict, he had every 
thing to gain, and nothing to lose — without a 
character to sustain, and universally loathed 
and detested by all decent men of tho world, 
and abhorred by most of the christian world, 
that either know him personally or by repute, 
I might have sustained no injury from silence, 
had he have stood alone in his onset; but this 
has not been the case. In his assailment, 
he has been the tool of a vile but extensive 
political faction, compounded of office-hold- 
ers, office-seekers and political aspirants, and 
of the dregs of abolitionism, that were band- 
ed together, and needed exactly such an in- 
strument as Robert Judas Iscariott Breckin- 
ridge to carry on their political juggleries. 
In turning upon their instrument, I have 



[ 03 ] 



only intended to beat off the dog they have 
hissed on me, that I may, as I intend to do, 
lay bare this compound of political jugglers, 
who have supposed that I stood in their way, 
and that before they effected the destruction of 
all moral government in the State, and laid 
prostrate her laws and institutions, it was 
necessary to destroy any supposed influence 
I might have over the opinions and sympa- 
thies of the people of Kentucky. 

When this faction matured their plans in 
1840, and succeeded in carrying the election 
of that year, in favor of the negro law, I ad- 
dressed the people upon the evil effects of 
that law— reminded them of the assault that 
had been made upon me by the reverend 
slanderer, in 1830, when they, the very peo- 
ple that had been tricked into the vote favor- 
able to abolitionism, at the then recent elec- 
tion, with great unanimity sustained me, 
and put down the great clamor of the aboli- 
tionists. This, no doubt, brought the rever- 
end gentleman into Kentucky, when he com- 
menced his war upon me. His employers 
have used him to effect their purpose— that is, 
to slander and villify me, and for all they 
now care for him. he may do as his great ex- 
emplar, Judas Iscariot did — -hang himself. 

R. WICKLIFFE. 

Lexington, November 29, 1841. 

Sir: — A friend having, on yesterday, called 
my attention to the Observer & Reporter, of the 
24th inst., I regret to find, that in your '■'■reply 
to Robert J. Breckinridge ,'' as published in that 
paper, you have references tome, which I nei- 
ther authorised nor can sustain; and which, if 
sanctioned by my silenco, might operate injuri- 
ously to me, and unjustly to others. ' 

Having, for many years, maintained with both 
Mr. Breckinridge and yourself, intimate rela- 
tions of uninterrupted amity, I desired, from 
the commencement of the unpleasant controver- 
sy between you, to occupy, as far as might de- 
pend on myself, no other position than that of 
impartial neutrality, in such a warfare. And 
this personal wish being fortified by prudential 
considerations, connected with my official rela- 
tions to the public, 1 had persisted in avoiding, 
as carefully as I could, any voluntary communi- 
cation to either of you* which might commit me, 
in any way, either as partisan or witness. 

Nevertheless, both Mr. B. and yourself have 
sought information from me, respecting a subor- 
dinate matter of dispute between you, and each 
has seen fit, without asking my consent, to pub- 
lish that I know facts, important to each, and to 
cite me as a witness, to be interrogated by eve- 
ry person who may desire to catechise me. Nei- 
ther the occasion, nor tenor of the only conver- 
sation I ever had, directly or indirectly, with 



either Mr. B. or yourself, on this disagreeable 
subject, could have authorised the expectation 
that public reference would be made to me, with- 
out notifying me of such intention, and obtain- 
ing my approval; and without explanation or 
correction, there is such an apparent discrepan- 
cy in the implied object and effect of your res- 
pective references, as might exhibit me in the 
discreditable predicament of having been uncan- 
did to one of you, or essentially inconsistent in 
my statements. You have thus placed me in an 
attitude as unexpectedly as it is certainly embar- 
rassing. This has been done without any con' 
sent or fault of mine, as you will perceive, on a 
review of the facts as they occurred. 

Happening, late in August last, to meet Mr. 
B. in a public room, after an interchange of ac- 
customed salutations, ha remarked to me: "1 
presume, sir, a Judge never forgets the incidents 
of the first case ever argued before him on the 
bench." To which I replied, "I do not know 
that I have a more distinct recollection of the 
first, than of others that have been argued be* 
fore me.' 1 He thon enquired, "Do you remem- 
ber the first case which was argued before you, 
as Appellate Judge?" To which I answered, "1 
believe it was the case of Breckinridge vs. Orms- 
by°" "That is the very case, sir," added he, 
and he then enquired, "Do you recollect who ar» 
gued that case for me?" To which I respond- 
ed, "I have a distinct recollection, that Mr. 
Woollcy opened the argument for you, and have 
an impression that Mr. China concluded it." — - 
Then pointing to Mr. Chinn, who was not far" 
off, he said, "Chinn has just told me that Wool- 
ley and himself argued the case for me, and 
that Mr. Wickliffe did not appear in it, other- 
wise than as being represented by Mr. Woolley; 
is not that the fact, sir?" To this I replied, "It 
is a rule of court, that only two counsel shall 
argue the same case, on the same side, and I 
have no recollection whatever, of any personal 
appearance by Mr. Wickliffe, in your case, in 
our court. He then suggested, that as I was 
still a Judge, I was doubtless reluctant to be in- 
volved in the matter, and tbat he would there- 
fore write to Mr. Underwood, who was with me 
on the bench when the cause was argued, and 
who, not now being a Judge, might feel more 
free to make an explicit and peremptory state- 
ment; but finally added, that as he had then pub- 
lished his "vindication,'' he believed he would 
say nothing more on this particular subject. — r 
We then parted, and 1 have had no communi- 
cation with him since. But not long afterwards, 
I heard that he had published an appendix, in 
which he referred to this converaation. 

Some time after this, in a conversation be- 
tween Judge Woolley and himself, he informed 
me that he recollected that you had made an ar- 
gument in the Court of Appeals, in the case of 
Breckinridge vs. Ormsby, (which was argued in 
1829,) and he suggested several minute facts, 
for the purpose of refreshing my memory also. 
[ then repeated to him the substance of the con- 
versation between Mr. B. and myself — told him 
I had neither expected, nor authorised the ref- 
erence to me, to prove that you had not argued the 



[ "I ] 



cu.se, and concluded by saying, that though I 
could not remember the facts mentioned by him 
for reviving my recollection, yet I could not say 
that you did not argue the case, and that as my 
non-remembrance should not oppose his explicit 
and positive recollection, I did not question the 
truth of his statement. 

Not long alter this interview with Judge 
Woo Hey casually meeting in the Clerk's office of 
the Fayette Circuit Court, you alluded to the 
same topic, and said you had determined not to 
argue the case of Breckinridge vs. Ormsby, in 
the Court of Appeals, and had therefore induced 
Mr. Woolley to prepare himself, and argue it in 
your place; but that during the argument, which 
consumed several days, both Woolley and 
Chinn urged you to appear also in the case, 
which you at first declined to do, partly on the 
ground, that you had not read the record, which 
was very voluminous but that finally you conset- 
ed, that if the Court would hear you after the reg- 
ular argument, by other counsel, you would dis- 
cuss the preliminary question, whether a deed 
relied on, as a. confirmation, had been exhibited 
by the pleadings in such a manner, as to au- 
thorise the court to take judicial notice of it; 
and you said the court did extend the solicited 
favor, and sat after dinner, for your accommo- 
dation, when you did discuss that question, and 
you expressed surprise, not only at my still not 
recollecting any of (hose iacts, but also at my 
having, as you said, authorised Mr* B. to refer 
to me for proof, that you had not appeared in 
the case. To all this, 1 responded, (as I ought 
to have done,) that whilst candor required me 
to repeat that I could not recollect any of the 
circumstances thus detailed by you, I did not 
question the accuracy of your memory, and did 
not feel authorised or disposed to controvert your 
statement; but that you were altogether mista- 
ken, in supposing that I hai authorised Mr. B. 
to refer to me for proof that you had made no ar- 
gument or suggestion in his case. I then repeat- 
ed to you, substantially, as I have herein before 
quoted it, the only conversation between Mr. 
B. and myself that subject, and assured you 
that this was the only authority he had, and 
that I had not, of course, expected that he would 
make any such reference to me,, as that describ-. 
ed by you, or as that which he did make; but 
that, presuming as I did, that he believed, from 
what Mr. Chinn and myself had said, that it was 
our opinion, so faras our own knowledge exten- 
ded, that you had not argued the case, I had 
not complained, and would not complain of any 
breach of honor or faith, although I regretted, 
and had never consented to the reference which 
he had, in fact, made, and could sustain it only, 
by still repeating that I had said to him, in ef- 
fect, that I had not the remotest recollectioa of 
your making any argument in his case, in the 
Court of Appeals, and thus our conversation 
ended. 

These are the only essential facts, so far as I 
have had agency in this affair; and upon a dis- 
passionate review of them, you will perceive 
that my only agency has been involuntary, and 
prudentially cautious, and perfectly consistent 



in every respect. You cannot fail to see alsc\ 
how unreasonably I have been implicated in 
your controversy, and how essentially your ref- 
erence to me must tail in its ostensible object ; — 
and when you carefully revise, as I now desire 
y<~>u to do, the references, as made to me, by Mr. 
B. and yourself, you can have no difficulty in 
seeing the character and extent of the error 
which it is now my purpose, as it is my duty, to 
have corrected, and the most appropriate mode 
of relieving me from an unenviable position in 
which you have mad vertently , as I hope, con- 
tributed to place rne before the public. 

Mr. B's. reference to me is as follows: "The 
proof on which I assert that he (you) did not 
argue the case, is the distinct recollection of 
every person connected with the case, with 
whom I have conversed in reference to this fact, 
and especially of the Hon. George Robertson, 
Chief justice of Kentucky, who presided on the 
trial of the case, and Richard H. Chinn, Esq., 
who closed the argument for us." 

Your references to me are in the following 
words; "The next impudent attempt of the 
reverend slanderer, (B.) is his statement of a 
palpable falsehood, in saying that I did not ar- 
gue the case of Breckinridge us. Ormsby; and in 
further stating that Chief Justice Robertson 
and Mr. Chinn authorised him to say that I had 
not argued the case. .1 udge Robertson authorises 
me to say, that the statement of the reverend 
slanderer is, as to him, gratuitous. Charles 
Carr is your neighbor, and I refer to him, as I do 
to Judge Robertson, to contradict the slanderer." 

Now, sir, you will see that Mr. B. had not 
said, (as you supposed,) that I had "authorised" 
him to say that you had not argued the case, and, 
therefore, you cannot prove by me, that he has 
been guilty of this imputed falsehood. All lean 
sav, is but to repeat that Mr B. was not Authoris- 
ed'''' by me to refer to me, as he has done, although 
I had told him as already stated, that 1 had no 
recollection of your arguing his case. Mr. B's. 
reference to me, is inaccurate, only in importing 
affirmatively, that I had a distinct recollection 
of a negative, instead of saying, as in strict pro- 
priety he should have done, I had no recollec- 
tion of his appearing at all in his case^ in the 
Court of Appeals, although I distinctly remem- 
bered that others had made arguments in it. — 
But he had not (as you inadvertently had charg- 
ed him with doing,) stated in his "reply," that I 
had authorised him to alledge, that you had not 
argued his case; therefore, you will see, by re- 
curring to eis published allusion to me, that I 
cannot contradict him in that particular, as 
your comprehensive reference to me, would 
seem to imply that I had authorised you to say I 
would. You must perceive, also, that I cannot 
sustain you, when you, say that I authorised you 
to charge that Mr. B's. reference to rne, or state- 
ment as to me , was "gratuitous;" and should 
any person in consequence of your reference to 
me, call on me for information on this subject, 
I should have to tell him, as I told you, that I 
did say to Mr. B., that I retained no personal 
knowledge of your appearing in his case, in the 
Court of Appeals, and to add, that I have not 



t Go J 



uvcn yet any recollection of your saying one 
word in it. 

You are therefore mistaken, also, in your ref- 
erence to me, to aontradict Mr. B's. statement, 
otherwise than I may herein already have done 
•so — that is, as to its affirmative form, and per- 
emptory manner; nor, as you must know, can I 
"contradict," Mr. B's . allegation, that you did 
not argue his case in the Court of Appeals. — 
But your reference to me, implies that I would 
"contradict" that assertion; and my silence 
would sanction that belief, which would be alto- 
gether unjust; for, as already suggested, what- 
ever others may recollect, it cannot be proved 
by me, that you made any arguments in that 
case. I, therefore, submit to your candor, the 
question, whether you were authorised to refer 
to me, as you have done, and whether my silent 
acquiescence would net make ine an instrument 
of delusion to the public, and of injustice to Mr. 
Breckinridge? And I feel assured, sir, that on 
a careful reconsideration, it must afford you 
pleasure to retract, or properly qualify that ve- 
ry comprehensive and indefinite reference, made 
hastily, no doubt, without considering all its 
consequences. 

The only purpose of this communication is, to 
place myself in my true attitude, and avoid any 
delusive or unjust implication that might result 
to others from my silence; and it now seems to 
me, to be but reasonable that I should request, 
that in a spirit of justice and honorable magna- 
nimity, you will give as much publicity to this 
explanation and correction, as you have given 
to your references to me.' 

I shall consider it my duty to transmit to Mr. 
Breckinridge, also, a copy of this communica- 
tion, lours, resoectfully, 

GEORGE ROBERTSON. 

Lexington, December 9, 1841. 

Sir: — On reaching home, a few days since, I 
received through the Post Office, your letter of 
the 29th November, in which you complain of 
the injustice I have done you, in my response to 
the Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, and say that I 
was not authorised to state that Mr. Breckin- 
ridge's reference to you, to prove that I did not 
argue the case of Breckinridge and Ormsby, 
"was gratuitous.'' And you also say that Mr. 
Breckinridge had not said that you had author- 
ised him'to refer to you; and yet, sir, you admit 
that you did tell me, that you did not authorise 
him, or expect him to refer to you. You farther 
admit, that you did tell me, that you had no dis- 
tinct recollection that I had not argued the 
cause, and say that you only told Mr. B. that 
you had no recollection that I had argued the 
cause. Mr. Breckinridge's statement is as fol- 
lows: 

"The proof on which I assert you did not ar- 
gue the case at all, is the distinct recollection of 
every person connected with the case, with 
whom I have conversed in reference to this fact; 
and especially of the Hon. George Robertson, 
Chief Justice of Kentucky, who presided on the 
trial of the cas?." 

Now, sir, this man, in the newspapers, and in 



his book, asserts that I did not argue the said 
case, on your distinct recollection, with whom he 
has. had a conversation. He doe? not say he had 
your power of Attorney, but he says he had 
your word for it. Is not the word of Chief Jus- 
tice Robertson authority to any gentleman? — 
You do not preteud to say that you requested 
Mr. Breckinridge not to speak about it, but ad- 
mit that you saw his publication, and were wil- 
ling to let it stand uncorrected — that is, Mr. Breck- 
inridge had charged me with odious lying, and 
had vouched the Chief Justice Robertson as au- 
thority, whom he declares had, on his own per- 
sonal and distinct recollection, informed him 
that I had not argued the case of Breckinridge 
and Ormsby. Thus, sir, you, with whom I have 
been long associated in terms of personal and 
political amity, were willing to let Mr. Breckin- 
ridge, on your own distinct recollection, blast 
my character, or to raise and issue between 
you and me. I know, sir, that you must have 
the most fallacious memory upon earth, if you 
had ventured the statement, and was not unap- 
prized of the weight of your name, and of th« 
political purposes which were to be effected in 
my destruction. But I knew I had truth on my 
side, and I had determined to take issue with 
you sir, and not another. 1 knew that I had 
not only argued the cause before you by the hour, 
but by the day, and that nothing but delusion 
itself cauld induce you to say, I had not . And, 
sir, nothing was more foreign from me, than to 
ever ask you a question-about Mr. Breckinridge's 
authority; he had publicly vouched you, and 
thrown the issue, as I have stated, between you 
and me. In the eyes of all, you were my ac- 
cuser, and bound to make good the charge; and 
as Mr. Breckinridge, to your knowledge, stated 
that he had conversed with you, and that you 
had said, of your own distinct recollection, / 
had not argued the case , I was, as 1 supposed, not 
to combat the matter with the worthless name of 
Robert J. Breckinridge, but with George Rob- 
ertson, Chief Justice of the State, who had vol- 
unteered his evidence for Mr. Breckinridge to 
brand me a falsifier. Under this impression, I 
had determined upon a course that should not 
leave the question of veracity between us, even 
questionable in your own view. 

When Judge Woolley met me, and informed 
me that you had said to him, that Breckinridge 
was unauthorised to refer t® you, that you had 
only told him that you had no recollection that I 
had argued the case of Breckinridge and Orms- 
by, and that you did not recollect a single coun- 
sel that argued it but the Judge himself. The 
Judge further states that Chinn had stated that 
he had told Mr. Breckinridge that he had no re- 
collection who had argued cause — that he could 
not recollect that he himself had argued it. al- 
though he had no doubt he had done so. As you 
had made no contradiction nor explanation in 
the newspapers where you had been vouched for 
the slander, and had said nothing to me person- 
ally, I had determined not to consider your 
statements to Judge Woolley as at all relieving 
you from your responsibility as vouchee of Breck- 
inridge, when, in a few days after, I attended in 
the Clerk's office for a copy of a bond I had found 



[ 66 j 



deposned xn the Clerk's Office, as I supposed, by 
Breckinridge, the existence of which he had de- 
nied. On my asking for the bond, and observ- 
ing you were attentive to my call for it, I told 
you I had found the bond, Mr. Breckinridge de- 
nied the existence of. After some inquiries by 
you, about it, you, sir, and not me, introduced 
the subject of his reference to you, and you be- 
gan by saying, "Mr. Breckinridge was not au- 
thorised to refer to me, or to assert the fact up- 
X? , m / J r J ecol,ecti °n; for, the fact is, I told him 
that l did not recollect who argued the case ex- 
cept Judge Woolley, and I thought Chinn did, 
out ot that I had no recollection; and" said you 
to me, "«1 don't suppose that I should have re- 
collected that Woolley argued the case, but that 
it was the first speech I ever heard him make.' 



Here I remarked, "that that was very different 
lrom Mr. Breckinridge's statement; for, after 
thirteen years and more, anv Judge might for- 
get;" but I felt astonished that any Judge should 
have expressed his perfect recollection that I 
had not argued that cause, and more especially 
yourseK, with whom I had conversed about the 
case, some time after the cause was argued and 
decided, when you remarked that the Court had 
at first, difficulty, whether to treat the mort- 
gage of 1802, as a mere confirmation or a new 
grant; but that you were, from the first, inclin- 
ed to my view on that point; but, said you, nei- 
ther Chinn nor Woolley took that ground, but 
relied upon it as a deed of confirmation only, and 
that a lunatic's deed could be confirmed. You 
stated, in reply to these remarks, that you were 
satisfied, from Woolley 's statement, as well as 
my own, that I had argued the cause, but that 
it was impossible that you could recollect coun- 
k u° ar £ ued Particular causes, and that al- 
though I had argued manv causes before you, 
you could not, as you believed, from a particu- 
lar recollection, say I did or did not argue any 
particular cause. Here I feel myself compelled 
to say that your memory has misled you, rela- 
tive to what I further stated. I did not say 
that after the argument had progressed, I had 
consented to argue a single abstract point, and 
that I made that argument after dinner. My 
statements were, that Mr. Breckinridge had, at 
one time, agreed to excuse me from arguing thp 
cause, an d that he would risk it on Chinn's and 
Woolley's speeches, but that he changed his 
mind; and first, through Woolley, and then per- 
sonally, urged me to argue it— that on this oc- 
currence, I told Chinn and Woollev that if they 
could get the special leave of the Court, for me 
to close the case, and would progress with the 
cause until the counsel on both sides were heard 
that I would close the case— but they must send 
for me— which leave they informed me they had 
obtained— that the cause, I thought, was com- 
menced on the ]7th, and continued part of the 
morning of the 19th, under discussion by other 
counsel, when I was summoned into Court by 
the Sergeant of the Court— that I commenced 
ray speech before dinner, but being unable to get 
through before the usual adjourning hour, the 
Court, on my special request, heard me in con- 
clusion, m an evening session, I did not state 



that I argued only one point. I stated that I 
had not heard a single speech in the cause, and, 
therefore, confined myself principally to the 
points of law arising in the case. 

So far as your recollection substantially va- 
nes from what I state relative to my account of 
the trial, 1 think it is not correct. Although I 
am sure you have stated truly your impressions 
ot what 1 said, as Breckinridge had not, on his 
particular knowledge, but on you distinct recol- 
lection, made a charge of falsehood on me, when 
I came to reply, how else was I to treat you af- 
ter your explicit disavowal to me of his state- 
ment, that you distinctly recollected that I had 
not argued the cause, and after your ex- 
plicit declaration, that you had not authorised 
him to vouch you for the assertion, otherwise 
than to say that his statement-that he was au- 
thorised by you to charge me with falsehood— 
'was gratuitous?" You had denied the state- 
ment to me— you had denied it to Judge Wool- 
ley, without reservation that he or I was not to 
use your denial. And, sir, I certainly consider- 
ed and now censider, that when Chief Justice 
Kobertson tells me, and tells another, that he 
did not authorise the use of his name— that he 
did not use the expressions imputed to him— 
that the statements of Mr. Breckinridge, vouch- 
ing Judge Robertson for the slander, I was au- 
thorised by him to say, 11 were gratuitous." 

If you only said to Breckinridge that you did 
not recollect that T argued the case, that was no 
slander. It did not conflict with my veracity 
but if you had said you knew 1 had not argued 
it, as he asserts you did say, then, sir, you be- 
come, at once, a principal in the issue. I was 
bound to clear the slander of your name, or take 
issue with you. You had personally assured me 
that you had not authorised your name to bo 
vouched for the slander, and I did in the way 
that I thought, and still think, the most respect- 
iul to you— place you where your own state- 
ments authorised me to place vou— that is, as 
not standing vouchee for the slander. But you 
seem to take offence as well as exceptions to my 
making reference to you, to prove the falsity of 
his statement— that you, on vour distinct recol- 
lection, had told him I had not argued the case. 
You say you did not authorise me to refer to you, 
and will not sustain me, for you did tell Mr 
Breckinridge that you recollected others argued 
the cause, but did not recollect that I did; Sir 
does this sustain him? Certainly not. But you 
seem to infer that I wished the world to believe 



that you had a particular knowledge that I had 
. This is error. Nothing I have 



argued the case, mis is error. i^otmngxj 
said justifies such an idea. Nor have you a 
right to complain that I referred the freemen of 
Fayette to you, to get from you your statement 
of what you knew or said to Breckinridge. You 
had been appealed to by a slanderer, who was 
attempting to get evidence, not only to blast the 
reputation of a man who had, when you needed 
his friendship, never withheld it — who had nev- 
er spoken of you an unkind word, much less 
aided a slanderer to cater slander against you. 
You had done more; you had even held converse 
With him, and spoke of rnles of your Court, 



[ 67 ] 



prohibiting more than two lawyers a side to 
speak. Indeed he had opened to you his views, 
and you must know that if I was the despicable 
wretch that would lie, and say 1 had argued a 
case, when I had not, that if you knew the fact, 
of your own distinct recollection, that you 
ought to have arraigned me before you, and 
your brother Judges, and on your distinct re- 
collection, dismiss me from the Court of Appeals. 

After you held this conversation, Mr. Breck- 
inridge, whom ysu call your friend, announces 
in the public prints, that he charges me with 
wilful falsehood, upon the "distinctrecollection" 
of Chief Justice Robertson. You are my neigh- 
bor — you are my friend — at least, you had no 
just grounds to be otherwise. You read a slan- 
der upon my name, upheld on your name, and as 
you now say, you were contented. Now, sir, 
is this an act of friendship, when you disclaim 
the truth of the charge, as made by Breckin- 
ridge? Do you beiieve I would, under like cir- 
cumstances, allow my neighbor — my friend — to 
be slandered in my name? Would I even have al- 
lowed my greatest enemy upon earth to be s© 
slandered on my word, if I had not given my 
pledge for it, and stood ready to sanction the 
statement with my oath? After you permit Mr. 
Breckinridge, not on his authority, but on your 
own, to publish the slander, without contradic- 
tion, and then to see you, to converse with you 
for weeks, and to leave the State, unrebuked for 
his statements, that have been read by more than 
ten thousand persons, through the public prints 
and his pamphlets, does it belong to you to re- 
quire me to ask your leave to refer the public to 
you, and to hear your version of the story from 
you, and not to take the statement of Mr. "Breck- 
inridge, that he had slandered me on your word 
and recollection? I think not. When the 
Chief Justice of the State allows his word to be 
used without contradiction, and himself to be 
vouched for a slander, he has lost all claims to 
neutral rights. 

You said to me, "Mr. Breckinridge was not 
authorised; I did not utter the slander." Well 
this alone have I said; and yet you, instead of 
rebuking Mr. Breckinridge, who you knew was 
striving, in the first instance, to make you a wit- 
ness to sustain him as a slanderer, and who, af- 
tewards, posted your name, as his witness, in the 
newspapers, you send your rebuke to me, and 
notify me that you intend sending Mr. Breckin- 
ridge a copy of that rebuke. Sir, I am the in- 
jured party. You have no ground of complaint, 
if Mr. Breckinridge has finally done what he in- 
tended to effect — made you his witness, and a 
party in his quarrel. I know what it is to meet 
your name, after my votes for you as Speaker, 
Chief Justice, and the favorable opinions 1 have 
ever expressed of you in private life, add some- 
thing as to myself, at least, [against my ability 
to withstand the influence of your name, as part 
and parcel of my dispute with Breckinridge, and 
those that are hissing him on me. But what I 
must do I will do, and, if late in life, I gain no- 
thing else by your treatment of me useful, it 
will teach me that I have trusted too much 
to friends, and confided too little in those I be- 



lieved once to be otherwise. Breckinridge, a 
slanderer, applied to Chief Justice Robertson, of 
the bench of the Court of Appeals, for materi- 
als to blast my reputation. The Chief Justice 
gave him, as he says, his negative evidence on- 
ly, to sustain the slander. Breckinridge asserts 
that he has the Chief Justice's distinct avowal 
and recollection of the fact, and circulates it on 
the Chief Justice's authority, through two pub- 
lic prints, and more than ten thousand readers 
had the evidence in a book, the substance of the 
slander — he that is to be ruined by it, has aided 
to make the Chief Justice Speaker of the House 
of Representatives — has, by his vote, and by his 
speeches and addresses, aided more than any oth- 
er Senator, to elevate him to the high judicial 
office he sustains- — has, for nearly a quarter of & 
century, stood side by side with him, in all our 
political struggles, State and National. This in* 
dividual — this Judge — is vouched for the slander, 
and is willing, as he declares, to let the slander 
take its course. How different has been the 
course of Judges Rowan and Hickey. Between 
Judge Hickey and myself, unpleasant feelings 
had existed about the trial and condemnation of 
Moses. The slanderer, with him, as he did with 
you, attempted to extract out of him slan- 
der, and then falsely vouched his name as he did 
yours. Judge Hickey and myself have ever 
stood opposed in politics, and he owed me no- 
thing on the score of private friendship, beyond 
the ordinary courtesy of life; yet he, with the 
frankness of an honorable mind, in person, vol- 
untarily disclaimed the slander, and wrote out 
his discliamer, which I have published. 

Judge Rowan and myself, from youth to old age, 
have ever stood opposed in politics and in early life 
our differences became personal; and although I 
have long cherished good feelings for the Judge, 
and believed that whatever once existed to make 
either unfriendly had passed off with time, that 
is now heavily pressing upon both of us. The 
wiley slanderer whom you call "/nend," believ- 
ed he could make capital out of Judge Rowan's 
name to sustain as base a slander as he vouched 
you for. Mr. Rowan was himself my only ev- 
idence upon earth that Breckinridge uttered a 
falsehood in reference to my intercourse with 
him. On Judge Rowan I had no claims except 
those that one honorable man has upon another. 
Our friends had passed to the grave; yet, sir.no 
sooner does Mr. Rowan's eye meet the slander, 
than he sends me, unasked, the most ample testi- 
mony of Breckinridge's falsity. Not so with 
Judge Robertson. True, he makes a disclaimer 
of the slander — slow indeed— -and when I relieve 
him of all participation in it, and place him in 
the only possible position that I could place hin> 
before the public, disconnected with the slander 
and falsehood, he has been pleased to express his 
displeasure, While I seek no difference with 
Chief Justice Robertson, and have sought to 
avoid it, notwithstanding that I am not ignorant 
that immediately after Mr. Breckinridge held 
his interview with Judge Robertson, he was 
heard to say, he should prove me guilty of a 
"wilful falsehood by the Chief Justice," when I 
conversed with Chief Justice Robertson, I 



[ 68 J 



thought him open, avowed and decided, and that 
his object was to remove from my mind, every 
impression that he was capable of aiding the 
slanderer. If I have been mistaken, or have 
misapprehended Judge Robertson — if Judge 
Robertson intended, and now intends to sustain 
Mr. Breckinridge, he will please to consult his 
own notions of propriety, and I know my rights, 
and shall not fail to assert them. . 

Very respectfully, 

R. WICKLIFFE. 

* Extract of A. K. Woolley's Letter to R. 
Wickliffe, dated 

Lexington, Ky., Nov. 1841. 
•'After the decision of the case of Breckin- 
ridge and Ormsby I had a conversation with Mr. 
B., in which he stated that you had been coun- 
sel for his father's estate for a great many years, 
and had rendered it important services, and ex- 
pressed his obligations for them. That although 
you had not succeeded in the suit of Lee's Ex- 
ecutors against the estate, you had, by your 
professional labor and ability, procrastina- 
ted the decision, until you obtained the decree 
against Ormsby, out of which the estate would 
be enabled to pay Lee's judgment, thereby 
preventing the sacrifice of property. He said 
the estate owed you an account of long 
standing, the amount he did know, and that he 
never had any settlement with you. Mr. Breck- 
inridge at other times, before he became un- 
friendly to you, expressed grateful feelings to- 
wards you for your friendship and attention to 
the heirs of his father's estate." 

Yours, &c, 

A. K. WOOLLEY." 

Also, an extract of a Letter from the same 
to the same: 

"Lexington, October 30th, 1841. 

"Sir: — Your letter propounding certain in- 
terrogatories to me in reference to the matters of 
controversy between the Reverend Robert J. 
Breckinridge and yourself, has been received; 
and instead of answering each of them separ- 
ately, I will proceed to give you the substance 
of my information upon all the subjects em- 
braced in your letter. 

First, in the case of Ormsby and Breckinridge, 
I recollect distinctly that you argued this cause 
in the Court of Appeals. Since Mr. Breckin- 
ridge's publication I have seen Mr. Chinn and 
Judge Robertson upon this subject. Mr. Chinn 
informed me that he had given Mr. Breckin- 
ridge no statement as to the case, except he re- 
collected that I, myself, had argued it; that he 
had no recollection as to any one else in the 
cause, and that he did not indeed recollect that 
he himself had argued it, but that he believed 
he did. Judge Robertson made a similar state- 
ment, recollecting distinctly that I had argued 
it, but having no recollection as to any other 
gentleman. I then went into a statement of 
the facts connected with the argument, which I 
will here detail, and both of the gentlemen 
agreed in declaring that they had no doubt my 



statement was correct. I returned to Kentucky 
in the spring of 1828, for the purpose of resi- 
ding. In July or August of that year, while a 
member of your family, you handed me the 
papers in the case of Ormsby and Breckinridge, 
stating that I might employ my time in prepar- 
ing a brief for its argument. 

I prepared the brief in compliance with your 
wishes, and submitted it to Mr. Chinn and 
yourself. It was approved, after some additions 
made to it by Mr. Chinn. Preceding the argu- 
ments of the cause, Mr. Breckinridge, in a 
conversation with me, expressed his wish that 
you should argue it as one of the counsel, and 
as the rule of the court only permitted two 
counsel on a side to argue it, it must be a matter 
of arrangement between Mr. Chinn and myself, 
as to which of us should argue it. He based 
his desire that you should argue it, »ot only on 
your professional ability and fame, but your in- 
timacy wiih his father's business. I immediate- 
ly communicated the desire of Mr. Breckinridge 
to Mr. Chinn, who very generously proposed to 
retire from the argument of the cause, in order 
that I might argue it, having prepared the brief, 
and as I iiad never argued a case in the Court of 
Appeals. This I declined, and Mr. Chinn then 
suggested that he thought he could arrange it 
so that all three of us might argue it, as there 
were three parties in the suit, viz: Ormsby on 
the one part, and Breckinridge's heirs and Breck- 
inridge's Executors on the other. Mr. Chinn 
accordingly made the suggestion to the Court, 
and the Court, after stating that the counsel 
could determine for themselves, whether there 
was a conflict of interest between the Executors 
and heirs, which would entitle more than two 
counsel under the rule to argue it — permitted 
all three of us to argue it. I made the opening 
speech, and you and Mr. Chinn followed me in 
the argument." 

State ©f Kentucky, Sct. 

Breckinridge's heirs, &c. vs. Ormsby, decree 
of Jefferson. It appears from the record in the 
Court of Appeals office, that the argument was 
closed on the 19th of January, 1829. 

The case is reported in 1st J. J. Marshall, p. 
236, and the reporter appends to the case, that 
Wickliffe and Chinn were counsel for the ap- 
pellants, and Haggin and Crittenden for the. 
appellees. 

It appears from the printed acts filed in my 
office, that the Legislature was in session on the 
29th January, 1829. 

J. SWIGERT. 

Mr. Breckinridge having denied that I ever 
visited him while he was confined at Frankfort 
— to prove that statement also unquestiona- 
bly false, in addition to the statement of Judge 
Woolley, heretofore published, I will tax the 
reader to read the following extract of a letter 
I have lately received from the Hon. Thos. D. 
Carneal: 

"Mr, Breckinridge and myfelf occupied the 



[ 69 J 



small frame buildings on Weisiger's lot. Our 
rooms were separated by a partition, having a 
door therein — that you were in the habit of call- 
ing at my room almost every morning during Mr. 
Breckinridge's indisposition; there enquired of 
me about him, with much seeming interest, and 
my now impression is, that you were more than 
once in his room. Mr. Breckinridge, alter the 
arrival of Doctor Marshall, was removed to a 
room in the private part of the Tavern, and his 
friends were informed that he was too ill to re- 
ceive calls. I visited Mr. Breckinridge but 
twice after his removal. The first, just after 
the pills or balls came from him, aided by the 
Galvanic Battery, and the second, about the close 
of the Legislative session. Whilst examining 
the pills or balls, surrounded by mercury, at the 
window next the door, you came in, examined 
with me, and made a remark to this effect: "The 
poor fellow will now get well." 

Extratct from General Robert B. McAfee's 
letter to Robert Wickliffe: 

"I can only say that I called twice to see Mr. 
Breckinridge, during the session. The first 
time he had company, and I remained but a few 
moments. The second time I called to see him, 
J found him in bed sick. There was no person 



present but a servant. In a few minutes after, 
you came in and enquired how he was. You 
took a seat by his bed." 

Upon this issue which the gentleman made 
with me, on the advice of his brother John, 
to deny every thing, my former reply is 
pregnant with proofs of the mendaciousness 
of the preacher. But as Col. Carneal and 
General McAfee, seeing the parson's denial 
and impudent ascriptions to me of falsehood, 
in denying that I visited him while sick at 
Frankfort, were good enough to communi- 
cate to me their knowledge of the fact I had 
stated, I have thought it fair to them and the 
public, hereto publish their statements, which 
I do with a blush, that I have proven on my- 
self that I felt an interest in the recovery of a 
being so destitute of truth and gratitude, and 
who has paid me for that act of kindness, as 
well as every other I have performed for him 
and his father's family, with nothing but 
black ingratitude, and base fraud and false- 
hood. R. WICKLIFFE. 





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